


Lessons in Living

by Darkprism



Series: Monoshizukanohi [28]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Play, Angst, Bondage, D/s Relationships, Daddy Kink, Exhibitionism, Fetish, Ghosts, Hand Jobs, Horror, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Language, Leather Kink, M/M, Masturbation, Mild Language, Monoshizukanohi, Nipple Play, Sex Toys, Spanking, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:54:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkprism/pseuds/Darkprism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year ago, Tenzou lost the only man he ever loved, and the only man he believes he ever will love. So when an artistic prodigy many years Tenzou's junior enters his life with determined demands for love, play, and safe harbor, Tenzou is forced to face his past, remember his promises, and challenge his presumption that forever after is final.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hunter & Prey

The city night air was crisp on Asashi Tenzou's face, and it carried the scent of frying noodles and the first inklings of freezing rain. He waded through a sea of well-bundled humanity on the sidewalks snaking through Chinatown, ducking banners hanging outside shops and dodging market vendors trying to hock the last of their wares before closing down their carts. This was the only district in Monoshizukanohi where Tenzou could find a particular brand of incense he burned to meditate and a packet of Chinese herbs he liked to brew for tea. It was also the only place left that didn't keep a memory on every corner and down every alleyway, waiting to accost Tenzou and murder his heart all over again with a smile, a laugh… a last, wheezing, machine-driven breath.

Pain fluttered, old and weakened, in Tenzou's guts, and he cursed to himself. Now was not the time to be swayed by the siren song of ghosts. Later, Tenzou could indulge himself; later he could barricade himself in his woodworking shop in the lavish home built for two and occupied by one, and he could carve molding until there was nothing left but sore fingers, aching shoulders, and exhaustion.

The time to forget was later. Now was the time for action, for quicker steps away from witnesses and possible collateral damage. Tenzou took a fast right onto a side street, nominally taking a shortcut to the subway station three blocks east of his current position. A man in a dirty apron swept a loading dock. Lights flickered around a window filled with Mandarin neon. Cars and motorcycles kicked up dirty, icy spray ahead and behind Tenzou, tires rolling across puddles created by clogged drains. Someone yelled for a taxi. The group of boys ten yards in front of him chattered and cackled in a muddied mess of Chinese dialect and English, and he listened with senses sharpened by the military and marital arts.

There. Footfalls. Light and speedy and so amateur in their tailing it made Tenzou want to weep for the younger generation of stealth. The poor excuse for a stalker had been following Tenzou since Tenzou trotted up the steps of the subway, heading toward his errands. At first, Tenzou had told himself he was being paranoid. Spending too much time around his friend, Kakashi, who was a king of conspiracy for damned good reasons. Nobody could work as closely as Kakashi did to the Prime Minister's son and not become a little schizophrenic around the edges. The Hyuuga tended to inspire and encourage nervousness in the masses. It was part of the pretty man's… charm.

Tenzou kept telling Kakashi to spend more time bartending and managing his bar, Glow, and less time being the information man that kept the Hyuuga informed and their vigilante projects alive. Or, hell, Kakashi would even be far better suited to spend more time with his lover, Iruka, either in their gorgeous townhouse that Tenzou _still_ envied or on the floors of the BDSM club, Break, that Tenzou, Kakashi, Neji, and the Uzumaki kid owned. Break wasn't exactly mainstream, catering to the elite's need for bondage and negotiated brutality, but it was a damned sight healthier than risking life and neck for whatever bug Neji had up that delicately-defined, leather-clad ass.

Tenzou took a hard left, slowing down to make sure the idiot behind him had enough of a lead to continue the tail. He could actually hear Kakashi, now, laughter infectious and charming as Kakashi cocked a head of prematurely gray hair and politely pointed out that if working for the Hyuuga was so distasteful, why, then, did Tenzou agree not only to help build Break and invest in it, but also to help out with the moonlighting on a somewhat regular, if sporadic, basis?

To which Tenzou would sling back another shot of tequila and tell Kakashi to, one, fuck off, and two, remember that Tenzou had nothing left in life to lose. Kakashi had everything: the bar, Break and the dance club, Bliss, friends… and a man who loved Kakashi so much it made breathing difficult when around the pair of them.

And Tenzou played out Kakashi's imagined returned volley: that the reason he, Neji, Naruto, and others well-paid to keep secrets safe and illusions safer trolled the darker parts of this city was to eliminate threats endangering their loves and livelihoods. It was to stop the kind of dangerous people that the police often couldn't touch or wouldn't, and to turn the tides against crime and intrigue. It was, in effect, the same job that both Kakashi and Tenzou used to do for the military but were no longer allowed to perform due to injury and honorable discharge.

Tenzou never had a good comeback to that logic, though Tenzou did often wonder to what Kakashi's true allegiances were: Neji, the city, and the safety of loved ones or just the ability to give long-winded lectures and hear himself speak. After half a bottle of 1800 opened in the wee hours of the morning when Glow was closed, Tenzou usually suspected the latter.

With an abrupt step to the left, Tenzou knocked into a man heading in the opposite direction. "The hell?" the stranger exclaimed, predictably, while stumbling from the blow.

"Crap, sorry!" Tenzou said with faked enthusiastic chagrin. He spun, hands out to help the man regain balance.

"Are you blind?" the stranger groused, giving Tenzou a nasty look threaded with fear, and Tenzou smiled his best peaceful smile, knowing the sentiment didn't come close to touching his dark eyes.

"So sorry," Tenzou repeated, and he scanned and got a first clear look at his incompetent follower. Shorter than Tenzou's five-foot-ten inches, slimmer than Tenzou's one-eighty-five of hard muscle wrought from the gym and dojo training, and wearing boots, tight jeans, long coat, and a hat obscuring hair color. Kid's chin was tilted down to save face, hands shoved in pockets, and Tenzou completed his pivot and let the chase resume. The kid, man, woman, whatever would be hard pressed to take Tenzou down in a fair physical match, but any idiot could fire a gun. Tenzou carried his .44 in a holster on one hip, the Conceal and Carry a by-product of a lifelong love affair with weaponry and listening to Kakashi's paranoid rants, but he wasn't about to pull it on some punk without sufficient need.

So, Tenzou would just have to inspire that kind of situation. He could probably lose the guy by grabbing a car or by heading for the train station, but he didn't want to chance it. The person had stayed on Tenzou's heels through two stops and a dozen half-hearted attempts to shake the tail. It had already occurred to Tenzou that his new little friend might not be completely inept and may be trying for obvious. If that was the case, then Tenzou was going to force the guy's hand. Tenzou didn't need any more misery following him home, and besides, it'd been years since Tenzou had gotten shot. Even a painful or deadly distraction still served a purpose.

Tenzou started watching for openings. He knew this street well, and it was close enough to the subway station that there was a good mix of tourists searching for dinner and entertainment that his height and build didn't stand out. Every second human wore a black jacket similar to Tenzou's, and he started aligning himself with brunet men on cell phones and carrying briefcases or packages. He crossed the street at a trot, his slender friend following, and he blessed the sameness of the city, the monotonous monochrome. For six blocks they walked, passing the underground's entrance and continuing toward a series of apartment complexes floating above stores advertising acupuncture, XXX Videos, and the latest in cuticle treatments. Tenzou mapped entrances in his peripheral vision, and when a man roughly Tenzou's size took a turn to the left into a corridor, Tenzou elongated his stride and did the same.

The street was narrower, the sidewalk an afterthought, and a roundabout dead-ended in front of a string of apartments. The man Tenzou trailed kept going, presumably toward a late supper and the TV, and Tenzou pressed himself into an alcove made by two stone steps and the locked door of an abandoned building. He waited, heart thudding, but breathing slow and even. He counted, one-one-thousand, two, and heard a boot scuff the cracked concrete just before Tenzou's potential assailant appeared. Tenzou leapt out of the shadows, down the stairs, and grabbed a handful of coat covering a thin arm.

In a startling maneuver, the stranger dipped low, swinging around a lean leg without so much as a gasp or a grunt of exertion. Tenzou's body narrowly avoided the contact on autopilot, jumping and swiveling to follow the flow of the smaller man. Tenzou countered a palm meant to deflect, and stooped to grab lapels. Tenzou used his legs for leverage, hoisting the weight of his follower and pitching it into the nearby brick wall. A whoosh of wind, and Tenzou triumphed. The guy couldn't block momentum, proving yet again that size did, indeed, matter, and Tenzou landed against the breathless body, forearm an iron bar across a heaving chest. A soft sound of pain, and Tenzou stifled disappointment when his sparring partner quit fighting. Nobody evidently paid them any attention, because the halt in the violence didn't inspire warning cries, gasps, or even curiosity. God bless the city.

Tenzou ripped off the hat to get a look at the person who'd certainly made the last two hours more interesting, and glared in dumbfounded shock. "You!" Tenzou accused.

Familiar slanted eyes crinkled at the corners, and a cupid's bow mouth tilted in a shaky smile that seemed almost mocking. "Hi," said the boy Tenzou had met two nights ago, whom Tenzou would surely not have remembered except the guy was… well. The word 'beautiful' came to mind. Also: 'young' and 'strange'.

" _You're_ following me?" Tenzou asked.

"Yes," said the kid.

"Why?" Tenzou inquired, easing his crushing press, but only slightly. Recognition did not equate to trust, and for the _life_ of Tenzou, he could not remember the boy's name.

"It was logical?" the kid replied, making it a question.

"To what end?" Tenzou asked, trying not to shout. "And how did you know where I'd be?" Images flew in fast forward in Tenzou's mind: suits, dresses, champagne, gleaming trays of finger foods, a replay of the entire social affair. He needed to get to the part where he'd stepped away from this guy, said thank you, started to leave…

"I made inquiries."

Tenzou narrowed his eyes. "Of whom? Inquiries of whom?"

The kid searched Tenzou's face, expression completely lacking in fear or concern or apology. "The lively man." A small, fragile hand raised and gestured in the vicinity of the kid's head. "Odd eyes. Pretty. Blue and brown."

"Kakashi," Tenzou snarled. "I'll kill him."

"Please don't? He was nice."

"He was _not_ nice. He was fucking--" Tenzou cut himself off, blew a sigh.

"Umino Iruka?"

"What?" Tenzou asked, confused.

"I believe that's who your friend Kakashi was, and possibly is, fucking," the kid said, helpfully.

Tenzou felt the twinges of pain tickling his temples, but he pushed aside the warnings of migraine and tried to focus. "Are you… is that supposed to be funny?" He'd been leaving, the kid snagged his jacket, wanted Tenzou to wait…

"No?"

"How do you know…" Tenzou stopped, letting the tangential argument go for now. He returned to the sound of elevator music, the warm glow of spotlights. Tenzou had turned when he felt the hand on his elbow, he'd been curious and tired, and someone else called out a name. The kid responded, jerking attention elsewhere, and Tenzou recalled sleek jawline in profile, aristocratic nose, and though the boy's features had barely changed under the canned halogen lighting, Tenzou thought the kid had been irked. The kid… who had answered to…

And the name landed in a lightning bolt of recovered memory. "Danzou. Answer me. Why were you tailing me?"

The kid flinched, dropped Tenzou's gaze. "I'm not… that's not my name."

"Then what is?"

The boy licked his lips, touched Tenzou's hand and, with the speed of a rattlesnake, applied insanely precise pressure that made Tenzou have to let go or get hurt. Tenzou noted how the kid didn't use force, exactly; it was more like a casual warning. Tenzou released him, but didn't retreat.

"I'm Sai," the kid answered, looking up at Tenzou as though expecting… something. Anger? Disappointment? Tenzou had no idea, but the weight of anticipation hung heavy between them. A chilly mist began to fall, making a fog, and Tenzou squared his shoulders.

"All right, then, Sai," Tenzou said, resisting the dark depths of Sai's level stare. "Perhaps you'd better explain."

~*~


	2. Never Talk to Strangers

_(Two Nights Ago…)_

Tenzou crossed 32nd Street with a small crowd of people in wool coats, hats, and heels. Exhaust plumed from idling taxis and Towncars, and the air was cold enough to make Tenzou wonder if spring was merely a myth. Excited chatter swirled around him, and Tenzou clutched the heavy-stock, purple and black invitation in his pocket with one gloved hand.

Going to the art show had not been Tenzou's idea, exactly; it'd been an effort to show example of normalcy. Last Saturday, Tenzou had gotten up at his usual six a.m., done his ten mile run, and was in the middle of protein and breakfast when Kakashi had called.

"Hatake," Tenzou said, cutting a bite of omelet.

"Asashi," Kakashi replied, cheerful as always. "How are you?"

"The same as I was last week when you did your mother hen impersonation."

"So good of you to recognize a pattern."

"Recognize, yes. Figure out a way to break it? No."

"I'll quit when I stop worrying about you."

Tenzou sighed. "Oh, good. So, that'll be the day I die, hm?"

"Nah," Kakashi replied. "I'll still be worrying if you managed to get to heaven and find virgins or some such."

"I'd settle for a man who's been around every block of heaven more than once, thanks."

"Liar," Kakashi laughed. "You like the innocent types, you old corrupter."

"Coming from you, sensei, I'll take that as a compliment."

"So you _are_ feeling like yourself today, hm?"

Tenzou felt the prickles of nerves alight the back of his neck. He had to be careful, here, as Kakashi was way too damned intuitive for Tenzou's good. "I always feel like myself."

"Done any early spring cleaning?"

"Not yet," Tenzou answered, quieter and closing his eyes when his chest ached at the mental image of a solid, wooden door, cracked and filtering dim light. The hiss of oxygen, the incessant tones of machines, the silent rubber soles of shoes.

 _"Not long, now. We've made him comfortable."_

"You want me to come over? Maybe give you a hand?"

"No," Tenzou said, firm and rubbing at his sternum, appetite lost.

"Plans for the week, then?" Kakashi asked, artificially chipper, trying to change the subject, attempting to be a friend who didn't want to see Tenzou wallow for the rest of his life. Tenzou still didn't know how to tell Kakashi that he didn't have any desire to do anything else but sink into the oblivion of routine and solitude. Kakashi wouldn't like such admissions because Kakashi had overcome injury and self-pity, found love again, and still had the optimism of a fucking ten-year-old girl when it came to soulmates and happiness. On some days, it drove Tenzou crazy. On others, like today, it made him smile at his reflection in the glass windows surrounding the breakfast nook and be thankful that at least someone cared enough to notice if Tenzou lived or withered.

"Sure," Tenzou said. "Plans."

"Like what?"

Dammit, the man would want specifics. Tenzou floundered for half a second, spotted the pile of mail on the table, and snatched up a flyer. "There's an… art show." Tenzou scanned the brightly colored text. "In Blackwood Square."

"Oh yeah!" Kakashi said, excitedly. "It's Sai's new show at Ink -- that new gallery that opened last month."

"Sai?" Tenzou asked, but cleared his throat. "Right. Sai."

Kakashi chuckled, catching Tenzou's slip but not calling him on it. "I'll send you an invitation, then."

"Invitation?"

"Uh huh," Kakashi said, kindly. "It's guest list only, Tenzou."

"Oh. Of course it is."

"Misplace the one the Firm sent you?" Kakashi offered, referring to Tenzou's architectural business that he inherited from his father. "That pretty secretary of yours mention you might like to go see one of the country's most famous artists?"

"That must be it," Tenzou answered, grateful for the excuses Kakashi so readily gave him. "I'm sure I can find the invite again."

"No worries. I'll send you another, just in case. Make sure your name's on the list. Iruka and I are going, so we'll see you there."

"Oh." Tenzou swallowed, anxiety stirring and aggravating.

"See you Thursday, then, and call if you need anything."

"Sure."

True to his word, Kakashi sent a courier to Tenzou's house with an oversized envelope containing a rather aesthetically pleasing overture to attend Ink's premier showing of Sai's latest collection. Tenzou knew the artist's name, and knew some about him, as when the Asashi Firm and assorted contracted construction crews were working on Bliss, the dance club built ground-level above Break, Sai's people had gotten in touch with Neji about doing a mural for the entrance. Neji had agreed, and everyone had been thrilled until a list of working demands that would rival any rock band's had arrived.

Sai didn't like witnesses and required that no one be at the clubs while he was on site. Sai had eccentric hours of operation, namely the middle of the night, so at least that didn't interfere with the ongoing construction. Sai listed all the things he would need, all the things he would provide himself, and all interaction was to be conducted through his assistant. Tenzou never had the honor of meeting with said assistant, but Neji had made more than a few comments about literal, unexpressive, fish. And if a personality was bland enough to bother the Hyuuga…

The mural, however, had only taken Sai a week to complete. It was gorgeous, a depiction of pleasure and pain, night and day… opposites. The work came with a description of the meaning, and Neji had the notes transcribed onto steel and mounted on the wall behind the security check. Good of the kid, really. Neji always did have more heart and a mind for the contentious gesture than the brat would ever admit.

Turning up his coat collar, Tenzou followed a stone path into Blackwood Square, a renovated section of the Artesian District, which was adjacent to Monoshizukanohi's Fashion Quarter. High end shops, eclectic boutiques, overpriced loft housing, and carefully manicured gardens spread for two blocks, broken by repaved streets trafficked by horse-drawn carriages and the random, irked, cab. On the other side of the district was a new city park, still in its infancy. The Asashi Firm had donated generously to the making of the park, the process of tearing down condemned buildings from the early 1900s extensive. There was nothing to salvage for the Historical Society, unfortunately, the brick eroded to rebar and the interiors decayed by the homeless, the violent, and the weather.

Ink was also still new in the City's timeline. It'd be old news in another week, but for now it gleamed in the misty, light snow falling from the low ceiling of clouds. Shiny silver steel beams, reinforced, glare-resistant glass, and three stories tall, Ink fit right in with the rest of the pretentious square. The lines of the building pleased Tenzou on a basic level, however, and he liked the interesting touch of twin, narrow waterfalls over black stone flanking the main entrance. The stone was side-lit, and it made the gentle springs look like flowing ink. Calligraphy was carved into the metal encasing the wide doors: Latin, Tenzou saw as he nodded to the gentleman greeting the shivering gatherers to the altar of art.

Inside were more industrial angles combined with manmade nature, a small stream weaving through the flooring and traversed by fake stone archways. Plants in silver urns stood at opportunistic points, and the bed of the shallow river was made of the same dark stone as the exterior falls. The gallery walls were high, at least twenty feet, and the ones not supporting the weight of the building were mobile, meaning the gallery staff could rearrange works for a show at will.

Tenzou handed over his coat, gloves, and invitation, took his ticket, and picked up a flute of champagne on his way into the maze. Canned lights in pale pink and yellow lit up the white tile floors, elevator music getting piped in through invisible speakers was barely louder than the constant trickle of water, and Tenzou smelled six types of perfume worn by women in sleek dresses and tedious high heels. He had a small moment of panic when he entered the large main room flanked by spiraling glass staircases, the positive sea of humanity giving him pause. He spotted emergency exits, restrooms, and the steel doors of elevators. Waiters and staff floated among the guests like hawks, trying to spy the hungry or the interested. Tenzou felt underdressed in his slacks, shirt, and jacket, and too hot beneath the simple clothing. A man holding his attractive male partner's hand brushed by Tenzou, French spilling from full lips like silk.

Exposed and momentarily vulnerable, Tenzou grabbed the rail of one of the bridges, stopping the swaying. He couldn't tell if it was the room or himself doing the rocking, but he breathed, calmed down, and wondered if he should just leave. Screw Kakashi and the man's irritating schedule for Tenzou's mental healing. Let Kakashi be stronger, Tenzou couldn't win this battle and didn't care about the war. Being out like this was too goddamned hard. Especially since Jack would have loved--

"Tenzou?" A gentle voice asked, and the faint touch to his upper arm was equally comforting and aggravating. Iruka's calm presence filled Tenzou's senses in the next instant, however, and the professor swept around and stayed close. "It's so good to see you." Iruka's warm dark eyes were filled with some measure of sympathy, concern, and genuine pleasure, and Tenzou managed a smile.

"Iruka," Tenzou said in recognition. The professor wore a black suit without frills, though it was tailored to fit his trim form in pleasant ways.

"I saw you arrive," Iruka said, hand still on Tenzou's arm and squeezing. "Kakashi wasn't sure if you would make it."

"Ah, well, couldn't disappoint everyone, I suppose."

"We're delighted you're with us," Iruka said, firmly, and he tipped his head to the right. "Kakashi's found a group to entertain with stories and bad jokes, and I believe I saw 'Hyuuga and Nara' on the guest list when we checked in." He smiled. "So if you want to avoid the spotlight, I suggest getting an early start going to the next room."

Tenzou chuckled and clasped Iruka's hand in a brief shake when it fell from Tenzou's arm. "Create a diversion, will you?"

"I'll attempt to panic and interest him by threatening to buy one of the pieces," Iruka said solemnly.

"And if the Hyuuga gets wind of you having something he doesn't--" Tenzou began.

"--then surely our favorite demi-god must correct the oversight of taste by competitive acquisition," Iruka finished.

Tenzou shook his head, liking the professor more and more every time they spoke. "You'll give Kakashi my best?"

"I will, and I'll tell him you wanted to be alone with Sai's more controversial pieces." Iruka grinned.

Tenzou's eyebrows went up. "Sounds like this calls for more champagne."

"It does, and also, speed." Iruka nudged Tenzou toward the other side of the bridge. Tenzou saw an opening between two panels, people milling from the main showing to the smaller one beyond. "Even when distracted by social peril and Neji's hair, Kashi's nose is attuned to avoidance."

"So true," Tenzou said, patting Iruka's shoulder. "Thank you."

"No problem. Take care."

Tenzou made short work of the bridge, and fell into step with the direction of human traffic. Sai seemed to prefer large canvases and installations. The paintings in the room were abstracts that tricked the eye into seeing shapes. People loved finding patterns when there weren't any to be found, and Tenzou saw the genius of the oils splattered and spilled with particular abandon. Everyone saw something slightly different and argued about it, sometimes even quite loudly. Nearby, a woman was making the case that _Daydream Six_ was sexual in nature while a man in a shiny purple tux and horn-rimmed glasses shook his head and scoffed. Most of the works were marked, 'Sold', and Tenzou admired the artistic influence over popular, affluent culture just as he passed between the two panels and into a dim hallway.

Smaller pieces lit by spotlight gels lined the space, each one accompanied by a placard explaining, or so Tenzou suspected, the inspiration behind the art. These were portraits of single individuals, all sitting, all nude, and all somber. Again, the style leaned toward abstract, sort of Picasso-esque to Tenzou's entirely uneducated eye, but the emotion of the paintings was palatable. Hushed silence filled the air, groups huddled around the displays and whispered to one another, and Tenzou kept going. He had no desire to view falsified sadness when he was such an expert on the real thing these days.

Another opening made by movable walls, and the first thing Tenzou saw in the small chamber was the security interspersed among the attendees. They observed with dull professional gazes, and Tenzou counted armed bodies: six in total in an area probably no larger than five hundred square feet. Whatever was in here was valuable and, as Iruka suggested, likely to inspire conflict or strong enough reaction to warrant the watching. There would be no lively debates in here, and either people knew that or simply hadn't made it past the first displays, yet. Only a handful of souls joined Tenzou in tentative exploration.

A tree grew in the middle of the circular, tomblike room, and it was surrounded by a ring of optical illusion: the basin of water always appeared brimming and endless. The leaves and branches were woven with LED lights, and they seemed too bright in this alcove made of shadow and silence. The ceiling was glass, and it was covered by a film of ice. The walls were tall, the frames around each of the modestly sized paintings gothic, and it took Tenzou two seconds longer than it should have to understand why Iruka had warned Tenzou with the jest about alone time.

The subjects of the mini murals were in various poses of extreme bondage, some in pain, some in bliss, some in a combination that left Tenzou unsure which was winning. Leather, chain, vinyl; hooks, needles, bamboo; blood, tears, semen… none of the paintings could earn anything less than a Mature rating. Tenzou stepped to an image of a single person, male or female, Tenzou didn't know, kneeling solo before a black background full of vague shapes suggesting racks of torture. The figure was covered in cloth, most of it torn to reveal broken skin, and a pair of clear, startling green eyes floated above a face covered in a half-hood. The pure, undiluted need in the gaze made Tenzou profoundly uncomfortable but oddly unable to look away. He'd seen that expression more than once; cultivated it, longed for it, asked and commanded and done whatever was necessary to get it. He'd trained it into a response so that every time a chin lifted with a careful, guiding touch, Tenzou saw his destiny in the craving of another.

Shivering and draining his second flute of complimentary alcohol, Tenzou moved on to the next portrait. This was a couple, though the relationship impossible to determine. A woman knelt, nude save for a tall collar enclosing her throat. Her knees were spread, her arousal obvious, and her hair was a halo of golden curls spilling over her shoulders. Her arms were held wide, palms up, and her expression, though frowning, was one of blissful acceptance.

The man behind the kneeling woman, however, was anything but beatific. Nude as well except for leather gloves that came up to his elbows and boots that reached his thighs, the dominant held a heavy flogger woven with wire among the many leather tails. His erection was intimidating, the beading of moisture at the head detailed well enough to make Tenzou recall texture and flavor. He was on the pale side, wasn't overly built, had a bit of a belly, actually, though his arms were defined with solid muscles. His scalp was shaven, eyes fixated on the woman before him, lips in a snarl that evoked the recollection of every asshole stereotypical top Tenzou'd ever met.

Tenzou huffed softly under his breath, still glaring at the painting that pissed him off for sane and silly reasons alike, and, with his sidelong step, he ran into someone who had been standing at his elbow without Tenzou's notice. The fact that the proximity had escaped Tenzou's considerable attention was shocking enough to make him nearly leap out of his skin, and he stumbled backward, catching the champagne glass when it tried to slip from his grasp.

The guy -- man, boy, kid? -- didn't say a word. Thick, black hair stood up from the top of his head, artistically arranged to look unplanned and bed-mussed. His face was long, slender, the cheekbones highlighted by dusky shadows, and his eyes were slanted with Asian heritage that Tenzou suspected was Japanese. He wore a snug, shiny top with capped sleeves, high collar, and intricate velvet lacings down the front instead of buttons. The pants were loose, the shoes shiny and black to match the ensemble, and his skin was roughly a shade darker than pure ivory. Even with the inch heel, he probably didn't come to Tenzou's chin, and he stood with his arms crossed behind him, a pleasantly inquisitive expression molding his dainty features. His eyes, however, were the deepest color of midnight, and Tenzou worried for a fall into their fathomless focus.

"Excuse me," Tenzou muttered, mindful of the security attention the small ruckus had attracted.

"Who are you?" the stranger asked, voice surprisingly deep and musical.

"Pardon?" Tenzou replied, confused and curious when the kid predicted and matched Tenzou's avoidance maneuver.

"Your name. Do you have one?"

The question was without sarcastic inflection, but Tenzou still bristled. He didn't like this… this... how _old_ could this child be? Obviously north of eighteen to be in this room and in Ink, itself, but not by many months or years. "Yes, I do," Tenzou replied, quietly and trying for polite though the conversation was making that difficult.

"Will you give it to me?"

"No," Tenzou answered before he could think better of it.

The boy, however, didn't seem to take offense. Instead, he nodded, turned, and stood facing the painting Tenzou was trying to get away from. "That's _Aorta's Bliss_."

Sensing the inability for a clean break, Tenzou mimicked the boy's stance. "I see. Do you suppose that's her name or a clever play on 'heart'?"

"Yes," the boy said, smiling with the lower half of his face. The upper half didn't seem to notice.

"You're a… fan?" Tenzou tried, more for the sake of appearances than actual interest. The guy was gorgeous, yes, but Tenzou was absolutely, without a doubt, completely uninterested. He was starting to sweat under his shirt, and he combatted the rise of panic at an influx of patrons into the room by thinking of wooden molding; the _snick_ of sandpaper, the whine of a reciprocating blade.

When an answer didn't come for too many seconds too long, Tenzou glanced at his unfortunate companion. The boy was staring at him, with something so close to intimate understanding that Tenzou shifted away from the guy. "Are you not?" the boy asked. "A fan?"

"I'm not terribly familiar with the work," Tenzou hedged.

"This piece," the boy said, nodding so slightly that Tenzou would have missed it were he not watching.

"What about it?"

"Are you a fan of it?" The boy's stare was too direct, too clear, too… everything.

Tenzou searched his lexicon for kind phrasing, but the impact of the boy's patience was too heady and made him rush headlong into honesty. "No."

The answer seemed to surprise the guy. "No?" he repeated, and Tenzou shrugged. "What about it do you find reprehensible?" the stranger asked.

"Well, that's a bit of a strong--"

"You're reaction was one of extreme disgust," the kid said plainly.

Normally Tenzou liked someone who could cut to the chase, but this was disconcerting on every level imaginable and a few he'd not thought of, yet. "It evoked emotion, yes."

"I know," the boy agreed, almost impatient. "What kind and to what, specifically?"

"I'm really not the person to ask."

"You're the only person I _want_ to ask," the kid said.

And with that inexplicable bit of veiled, ulterior-motive-laden praise, Tenzou gave up. "It's the man's expression."

"Go on?"

Tenzou could actually tell it was a conscious effort on the guy's part to make that a question and not an eager demand. Tenzou appreciated the nod to manners. Direct commands from children didn't sit well with his ego, his past, or his patience. "I don't much like it, is all."

The boy mulled that over for a moment; just long enough for Tenzou to think he could make a run for it and then the boy inched closer. A sleeve brushed Tenzou's, and it was distracting in ways that nothing had been for more than a year. "You feel sympathy for the woman?"

"Empathy," Tenzou corrected.

Deep, deep wells fixed Tenzou in a crossfire from which there was no escape. "Have you been her?"

Tenzou was nodding before his brain caught up with his response. As it was too late to recant, he merely sighed, not particularly liking how he felt obligated to explain. He blamed it on his love to educate. "It was a long time ago, but I've bent knee to understand why my partner wanted to kneel for me." The kid seemed fascinated, and it encouraged Tenzou to keep going when better sense screamed for him to shut the hell up. "I figured it out, and I went home to… to him." Tenzou swallowed, the gulp flavored with bile. "And then I… spent years helping others figure themselves out, too." Tenzou tore away from the kid's face and stared at the painted dom. "So when I see that guy, it reminds me of the trust put in me. And I guess…" Tenzou licked his lips. They were dry, cracking. "I guess I know that if the man who trained me ever looked at me like that, I never would have really understood anything. Never got that it's _love_ that drives it all. Love that I felt and still feel for..." Tenzou snorted, hated himself, couldn't finish. He sighed. "I just hope like hell that I never, ever appeared that way to anyone who had the guts to bow before me." The babbled speech stunned Tenzou, and he fisted one hand, terrified but filled with his familiar long-lost friend, conviction.

"Oh," said the boy, more a sigh than a real word, and for a nanosecond, Tenzou was sure the kid tipped like he was going to lean, to fall, to, oh God help Tenzou, spill to the floor and curl about Tenzou's feet.

But the guy didn't do anything of the sort. Instead, they stood there for a tense moment through which Tenzou counted heartbeats and fought the urge to offer comfort when it seemed so out of place, so uncalled for, yet so very fucking _necessary._

"I know the artist," the boy whispered to Tenzou's upper arm, lips hovering above the fabric of Tenzou's jacket.

"Oh?" Tenzou said, choking on a lump in his throat, and withdrawing from the almost-contact. The exchange had exhausted his reserves. Fatigue bore down on his shoulders, tugged at his limbs, and he attempted to recreate the exact scent of sawdust.

"You should meet."

"Perhaps one day we will," Tenzou said tiredly.

"Ah ha!" Cried Kakashi in triumph -- Tenzou would know that voice and tone anywhere -- from behind him. The call clattered across the floor and against the walls, disturbing the strange atmosphere that hung around the weird boy like a pall.

"Nice meeting you," Tenzou said in a hurry, pivoting and catching Kakashi's keen gaze. Kakashi's smile faded ever so slightly, and he noted Tenzou, the kid, the painting, the room and the people within it with furious quick flicks of mismatched eyes. He started for Tenzou immediately, Iruka right behind him.

A hand tugged at Tenzou's sleeve. "Please," said the mysterious kid in his rich baritone. The word was without real plea, however, and a crazy thought occurred to Tenzou's intuition: this person didn't understand how a 'Please' was used, only knew it garnered attention.

"What?" Tenzou asked, too harshly and already kicking himself for not managing his tone. But it'd been nearly impossible to keep a handle on niceties since…

"Wait," the man-child said, simply and, again, without apparent offense. "I want to talk more with you."

"I have to--" Tenzou started.

"Danzou!"

An elderly man in a matte black tuxedo with an entourage in tow beckoned, and the boy got pulled in the direction of the raspy barked name like a pissed-off marionette. His sublime features faded and withdrew, right before Tenzou's eyes; like a moon flower at dawn. Kakashi's arm slid around Tenzou's shoulders, the boy marched away, guilty victim to guillotine, and something buried, ancient, and rusty stirred in Tenzou's guts -- a feeling so unused as to be forgotten, and so painful that Tenzou immediately drowned it in an avalanche of anger and regret.

"Getting a little insight into the kinky artwork, eh?" Kakashi asked, but even he was softer spoken.

"Hm?" Tenzou grunted, noting in his peripheral vision that Iruka flanked him.

Kakashi pointed at Danzou's escaping back. "That's Sai's personal assistant. Or so they say."

"You're not convinced of his real identity?" Tenzou asked, aiming for deadpan joke and landing in real curiosity instead.

Kakashi shrugged, hugged Tenzou sideways, and let him go with a megawatt smile. "You know my motto: pictures or it didn't happen."

Iruka made a disgusted noise. "Can we return to the land of innocuous shapes? This stuff leaves me…"

"Angry," Tenzou whispered, and both men looked at him.

"Something like that," Iruka replied. "I think I was going to say 'sad'."

"I should get going, anyway," Tenzou said, setting his empty glass on a passing waiter's tray.

"But we just found you!" Kakashi complained, but his look was of real concern.

"Not feeling well." Tenzou tried a smile. "Full hour in public. I think I'm done for the month."

Kakashi's eyes softened at the joking admission. "Walk you out?"

Tenzou glanced at the exit. "Neji's not out there, is he?"

"No," Kakashi said, grin overtaking his face. "But Naruto and Sasuke are."

"Shit."

Kakashi laughed and slapped Tenzou on the back. "Make a run for it. I'll cover for you."

"Thanks," Tenzou said, starting for the door, the hallway, the bridges over manmade waters, and, ultimately, home to his shop where he could distract himself until Valium and bed called.

"And Tenzou?" Kakashi yelled after him.

"Yeah?"

"I'll be in touch."

Tenzou mustered enough energy to groan at the veiled threat of friendly concern, and fled.

~*~


	3. Home Isn't A House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sai explains, Tenzou resists, and Tenzou goes home to ghosts.

"Explain what?" Sai asked, burrowing deeper into his coat without taking his eyes off Tenzou.

"Let's start with why I thought your name was Danzou," Tenzou answered. A car rolled by, the headlights gleaming on the wet bricks and concrete. They lit up Sai's face, made the boy seem preternaturally still and shady.

"Probably because that's what everyone believes."

Tenzou grunted, unimpressed by the direct but vague answer. He rocked back on his heels, and something about the move made the boy panic. "Don't go," Sai -- or whatever the hell the name was -- said.

"Why not?" Tenzou asked.

"Because I'm trying to explain, but I…"

Tenzou sighed through his nose, the adrenaline of the chase gone and patience wearing thin. "Get lost, and if I catch you again, I won't be so forgiving." Tenzou started to turn, and Sai wrapped himself around Tenzou's arm.

"I'm bad with people," Sai said, practically shouting and obviously desperate.

A dog barked, a horn blared in the distance, and the lonely landscaped trees rustled. Tenzou's heart dropped into his gut. He didn't like the boy touching him. At all. But he'd asked the question, demanded the effort of an answer, and Tenzou would allow the strange man a chance. "I'm listening," Tenzou said evenly, jaw flexing around the bitten admission.

"I… I…" Sai searched Tenzou's shoulder, the sidewalk, the air around them, looking for the words and still struggling. Tenzou was facing the kid with a hand on Sai's arm before he could think better of it, because the boy was just that: a boy. Tenzou's anger was stale and rehearsed. He wondered if it was even anger at all; more just the motions of the feeling. A tactic to understand what the kid was doing here so that Tenzou could cut Sai off with the most efficiency.

"Autism?" Sai said, and it was a question.

"What about it?" Tenzou replied.

Sai chewed on his lower lip, skin too pale in the dim city lights. "He says I have it. High functioning. And Asperger's, though I don't believe him." Sai stared into space, his eyes like stars fixed on points that Tenzou couldn't see. "And he says that people are cruel, and I should stay pure for the art."

"People can be vicious," Tenzou agreed, wondering about abuse, thinking about social services, wishing he knew how old this man-child was.

"You're not," Sai said, and the conviction was terrible. A life's sentence.

Tenzou held his arm away from his body and made a few intuitive leaps across the broken trails of information. "Danzou told you all that?"

Sai nodded. "He's my guardian."

"Danzou -- he was the old man at the show?"

"Yes. He says he's me."

"Says he's..." Comprehension dawned. "Danzou pretends to be you, the artist?"

Another nod, and even though the kid still hung on to Tenzou like a life raft, he met Tenzou's gaze. "He says it's for my own protection. That this way, I can walk among people who love my work if I want to or stay out of the way if I prefer."

"I see," Tenzou said, though, in truth, he didn't. "Where are your parents?" The wind howled, and freezing droplets struck Tenzou's skin.

"In graveyards," Sai answered simply and with a completely straight face.

"I'm… I'm sorry…"

"I've never told anyone that I'm the real Sai," the kid said, rushed, and his breath fogged in thick plumes. "Just you."

Tenzou shivered, and it had nothing to do with Sai's deep voice or with the sleet making icicles in his hair. "You should let go of me."

Sai stared at his own arms still clinging to Tenzou's, mouth a thin line of despair. "I can't."

"Yes. You can." Tenzou shook Sai off, thankful when the boy didn't use any fast maneuvers to resist; just let his hands fall limply to his sides.

"I came out here for you," Sai pleaded. "To find you."

"Look," Tenzou tried. "If I've given you some sort of false impression, Sai, I'm sorry, but--"

"I can't stop thinking about you. About what you said."

Tenzou thought he might come out of his skin: that the flesh along his spine would rip, expose him and tear him asunder, and Tenzou nearly went nuts for an instant before he got himself under control. "I'm not interested in you or your art, Sai. You need to--"

"You're lying," Sai declared, face screwed into a fierce frown.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. You liked telling me about your past."

"No, I just--"

"And you like it when I touch you."

Outrage began to boil, and Tenzou shut up the voices in his head that told him the anger wasn't born from Sai being _wrong_. "No I--"

"Yes you--"

"Enough!" Tenzou called, slicing the air with the blade of one hand. "I'm not standing on this street playing games with you, Sai or Danzou or whoever the hell you are. You… you don't know me." Tenzou tried to be as gentle as he could while panic made him dizzy and memory made him sick. "You don't know anything about me." Speaking the denial helped Tenzou's resolve reform, and he knew he had to get away from this odd boy, this strange child full of the kind of darkness that Tenzou found fascinating but couldn't, shouldn't, seek to understand. He didn't have any light left to shine into those pits and bring them into acceptance. He didn't have any energy left to manage even this conversation. Already he was tired, wary, worried.

"I want to know you," Sai said, and the honesty confounded Tenzou. It was so damned pure as to be heartbreaking. "I think you're beautiful."

Tenzou didn't know he was walking backward until Sai gave chase. "We've not having this conversation," Tenzou declared, spinning to find an exit route.

"Yes, we are," Sai insisted, falling into step next to Tenzou. "I spoke to your friend about you. I looked you up online. I know you're one of the owners of Bliss and Break. You know Neji. I wanted to paint for Neji. He's exotic and powerful and pretty."

"Stop it," Tenzou commanded.

"Talking about Neji? Okay. I can--"

"No! Stop following me," Tenzou said, nearly frantic, and, God, but this was a bad dream, wasn't it? Surely he wasn't trying to sidestep and escape a boy a third of his size in front of a cheerful apartment complex beneath the branches of dormant trees? It wasn't actually _him_ trotting away, breathing too hard for no good reason and feeling Sai's fingers tug at his coat like hot pokers jabbing him through every joint in his body. This was stupid. This was crazy. This was _wrong_.

"Go home!" Tenzou roared, wanting to die for being so awful to someone so young and so perfectly screwed up, and wishing for a sword onto which he could fall when Sai didn't seem fazed in the slightest by the outburst.

"Home, noun, the place where one lives," Sai recited, calm and placating and like he wasn't engaging a man who was dangerous in grief, training, and temporary insanity. "Home is where the heart is, home is where your loved one resides. Home is family. Hearth. Safety."

"Get away from me," Tenzou said, shaking all over and unable to stop staring at the boy's lips.

"I don't have a home," Sai said.

"What?" Tenzou whispered.

"I have walls, floors, a basement without windows where I work, but I don't have a _home_." Sai was too close, now, almost pressing against Tenzou, reaching again and making Tenzou's back slam into the trunk of a tree. Tenzou wheezed a gasp, and a distant part of his mind reminded him that he could kill with his bare hands; that he carried a piece in a holster beneath his coat, could use it, could call the cops, could call Kakashi, could break this child into pieces. _Would_ break Sai into pieces if the kid didn't get the hell away.

"Do you?" Sai asked, head tilted. "Have a loved one? A person you call home?"

Tenzou shoved off the slumbering bark, grabbed Sai by the lapels and nearly lifted the kid off the ground with a brutal shake. "I don't want to hurt you," Tenzou snarled. "But you come near me again, and I will." Tenzou threw Sai aside, watched thin arms and legs tumble into a heap, and Tenzou was running through rain, snow, ice to get to the subway. Down the stairs, onto the platform, into the first train that wasn't even the one he needed. Tenzou didn't mind, so long as it took him far, far away. He sank into a plastic chair next to a woman with a fake fur coat and overflowing shopping bags, and he put his head between his knees.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked, uncharacteristically kind.

"I'm never all right," Tenzou muttered, and the woman changed seats, doing the smart thing by putting space between herself and the crazy man.

And when the train reached the end of its line, Tenzou finally stopped hearing Sai say, over and over in a melodious whisper:

 _"Beautiful."_

~*~

Tenzou slammed the front door, threw the locks, and reset the alarm. He didn't know what time it was, didn't care. The house he'd built for himself and the love his life was pitch dark, silent, and smelled like lemon polish. The grandfather clock that Tenzou had made by hand ticked in the parlor, echoing the pattern of Tenzou's heart, and Tenzou sank to the floor. He threw his packages, heard them hit walls, contents scattering. He yanked at his hair, curled in on himself, and only the thought of what Kakashi would think of Tenzou like this made him finally rise. Tenzou couldn't bear the pity, couldn't breathe under the disgust, couldn't cope with the guilt.

Shedding his coat, Tenzou let it drop onto the rug he'd bought with Jack when they were traipsing through India. They'd gotten the thing for a mere forty bucks in a market, had to lug it back to their awful hotel that smelled, according to Jack, like a camel's ass.  
 _  
"Been sniffing a lot of camel's butts, have you?"_

 _"Yes. It's my new thing. And Jesus Christ, this rug weighs a ton!"_

 _"Set it down! Wait! Not on--"_

 _"Sorry!"_

 _"Just a toe. I've got ten."_

 _"I fucking love you."_

 _"Apparently, you love me more minus one pinky toe."_

 _"I'll make it up to you."_

 _"When?"_

 _"How's now suit you?"  
_  
Tenzou dug at his breastbone, scratched lines even through layers of clothing. At the top of the stairs, he caressed the banister he'd carved in the shop he'd built to make furniture for their home and for their play. He stumbled into a table that had belonged to Jack's mother. It needed to be refinished. Tenzou had kept promising Jack he'd do that and had never gotten around to it. Tenzou walked by the painting Jack had done of the meadow behind their house. He knew every brush stroke by heart, could recall the exact line of Jack's body as his lover stood at an easel and made canvas come to life with watercolor. Tenzou stripped out of his shirt in a hallway next to a spare room that was supposed to be for the child he and Jack would eventually adopt. Jack wanted a little girl to put in dresses and to teach how to play the piano. Tenzou just wanted Jack's happiness to be eternal.

The pain was too familiar to make tears, the rivers Tenzou had wept were all dry, now, to their cracking dirt beds. By tactile memory, he found the handle on the door leading to the apartment suite over the garage, and he stepped inside the room where Jack had died while Tenzou had held Jack's hand, every single item inside preserved and unmoving since the day after the funeral.

"I'm home," Tenzou croaked, and he waited, sweating and shivering. He stood in a long, narrow room that was supposed to be the living and dining area. On the far side was a full kitchen and wet bar. They'd built the house with the apartment attached as a mother-in-law suite. Tenzou's mother had a heart attack the year before the house was completed, and never in his life did Tenzou think his mom would be alive and healthy while his lover lay fallow in the earth. Turned out, the only time his surviving parent had stayed in her quarters was to hold Tenzou and bring him food that Tenzou never touched.

"Jack?" Tenzou whispered. "You… you here?" Instead of sofas and couches, though, this room contained a hodgepodge of canvases and boxes: Jack's hobby and Jack's things. The sink dripped, moonlight drifted through the windows, and without the aid of a breeze at all, the door behind Tenzou closed with a soft click.

"Oh," Tenzou said, sighing. "There you are."

A rustle in the dark, and Tenzou walked quickly through the front room, past the bathroom on the left, and into the bedroom. In the dimmest gloom, Tenzou's eyes spotted the hospital bed, cleverly disguised by quilts, throws, and colorful sheets. Dead flowers in vases stood on every surface, twisted blooms and bedraggled ribbon fallen to tabletop and carpet. Cards gathered dust, shelves full of books and gifts loomed in the corners, and the wide bay window's curtains were drawn. Again, Tenzou waited until a wash of frigid air caressed his bare skin for a mere instant. Ice touched his lips, and, just as quickly, the sensation was gone.

"Been a while since I came up here," Tenzou said, rubbing his arms. He caught a flicker out of the corner of his eye, kept staring at the ground, smiling. "And I know, I know… last time you told me to get lost." The closet hinges creaked, and the next time Tenzou was bathed in frost, it was more forceful, damned close to a shove.

"Something happened tonight, Jack," Tenzou said, and the pushing stopped, the room suddenly too still. Listening. "I… I don't even know…" Tenzou shook his head, hugged himself tighter, tucked his chin to his chest. "This stupid kid chased me though Chinatown."

A clatter made Tenzou flinch, and a teddy bear fell off the top of the tall table that used to serve as a nightstand. A glass, now empty of the water it once held, glimmered like quicksilver with light that didn't exist, and Tenzou saw Jack's last kiss caught on the rim. "No, he wasn't trying to hurt me. I don't think. I met him at an art show that Kakashi talked me into attending. He's young. Dark. Paints pictures. You'd love it." Tenzou's throat temporarily forgot how to swallow, and he panicked and recovered in a flash. "He's awkward, sheltered, I think, maybe not all there or maybe just _too_ there. He chased me down because… Well. I don't even know why. Said he wanted to know me better. I told him to leave me alone."

The room went from chilly to hot in a flash, and Tenzou gasped. "I can't," he said, shaking his head and crossing to the bed. He half-sat and half-fell onto it. "I know you think I should, but I can't, Jack. I miss you too goddamned much. It's… Jack, I'm not strong enough for anybody, much less this… this kid. He's a _boy_ , Jack. And so lost. Remember those days? When we thought nobody would ever understand, ever want us?" Tenzou realized he was crying when he had to sob for breath. The heavy drapes billowed, tried to reach for Tenzou, and Tenzou leaned to let the very edge flick against his chin before the curtains drooped into place once again. "There's honesty and innocence and need in him. His eyes… they remind me of yours. And it just… I think it'll kill me if…"

The cold was everywhere, and it stayed until Tenzou's teeth chattered and tears finally stopped. Tenzou grabbed a blanket from the bottom of the bed, draped it over his shoulders. He sat for a long time, breathing moist and labored. "He quoted the definition of home to me. Asked me if I had one. Said he didn't. I wanted to… I wanted to hold him? And I…" Tenzou put the back of his hand to his mouth, and then let it drop like a lead weight to his lap. "And all I could fucking think was how you'd read that damned book, _Where The Heart Is_ , every damned summer. Made me watch that movie until my eyeballs bled. Jesus." Tenzou wiped his nose on his arm. "Anyway. I know you only hang around this place because of my sorry ass. I know it's been over a year. I know every goddamned thing. But I just…" Tenzou's breath left him like it'd never return. And he hated it when, after less than a minute, his lungs forced him to suck wind.

"I can't." Tenzou let defeat and cowardice slice him into smaller, fragile, pieces that he wished he could permanently lose. "Jack... forgive me... but... " Tenzou's voice cracked. "I can't do it. What you asked..." He shut his eyes. "I just can't."

There was nothing; no stirring, no temperature change, no answer. Tenzou curled into a ball on the bed on his side, hollow like a gourd; carved out and left to decay, the dead among the living. "I'm sorry," Tenzou whispered. "But I have to stay here tonight. Just tonight. I'll go in the morning. I promise…" Tenzou felt a touch to his forehead. Felt the sadness in every pore, felt the disappointment, the heartache, and knew he deserved every ounce of it and then some.

"I promise I'll go," he said again, and shut his eyes on the world.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see Tenzou's House Plan, click [HERE](http://darkprism-fics.livejournal.com/34296.html)!


	4. A Friend in Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tenzou gets the clues...

The first package came a week later to Tenzou's house. It was Saturday morning, and Tenzou's breath fogged the air as he turned the final corner and jogged down the narrow, two-lane private road leading to the dead end circle that joined his driveway. Two other homes occupied fifteen-acre lots next to Tenzou's, and he waved to Mrs. Danison, who stood at the end of her drive with her irked toy poodle draped over one arm and a stack of mail in her hands.

"Morning, Mr. Asashi," said Mrs. Danison, artificially blonde, truly blue-eyed, and chronically flirtatious with her gay widower neighbor.

"Good morning," Tenzou answered, trotting up to the heavy, metal mailbox set in a stone tower next to the curb. He pulled out a collection of bills, advertisements destined for the recycle bin, and one large, unmarked manila envelope. 

"How've you been?" Mrs. Danison -- Diane -- pestered.

"Nice to see you," Tenzou said by way of reply and started jogging down his driveway and away from Diane's wandering stare. The last half mile of Tenzou's morning run was lined with bare trees and landscaped patches of mulch that he paid people to maintain. He felt almost good, nearly invigorated. Tenzou always did better in the mornings, and with a sheen of sweat coating his skin beneath his Underarmor and with his lungs singing from the foggy, crisp air, it was simple to let his mind drift, peacefully empty.

A van painted with the garish insignia of a cleaning service was parked under the covered portion of the rounded drive, in front of the main entrance into the house. Tenzou ducked by Mark and Katherine, the husband and wife team who managed Tenzou's home twice a month, and headed for the kitchen and a smoothie. He dropped his headphones and iPod onto a counter, laid down the mail in a new pile next to the others, and set about making breakfast. The comfort of the mundane made Tenzou hum, and in fifteen minutes he had a dirty blender, a cutting board of discarded fruit husks, and a glass of blended sweetness that he sipped through a straw.

A vacuum whirred, and Tenzou started sorting some of the paperwork amassing in its usual place. Tossing the junk aside, Tenzou picked up the oversized envelope, which had to have been delivered by hand, as there was no address and no stamp. ASASHI was written in a block script in ballpoint on one side, and for a moment, thoughts of anthrax made him consider throwing it out without opening it. He snorted at himself, gulped some banana-cantaloupe-wheat-germ, and turned the mystery letter over. He pushed up the metal tabs and yanked out the contents.

On a piece of thin but serviceable canvas was a painting of a young man lying on his side in a wide bed. The covers lay low over the subject's hips, revealing pale, unblemished skin. Daintily pink nipples stood out like blooms on the narrow chest, muscles that looked like they would start to move with slow, even breathing at any moment curved and contoured across shoulders, on abs and along arms, one of which snaked beneath the blankets and was very obviously attached to a hand forming a loose fist around what Tenzou supposed was an erection that the viewer could not see. The man's eyes were at half-mast, lashes touching delicately flushed cheeks. Behind the bed was a wall of stone painted with a wash of firelight that enlivened the man, the sheets, the entire image; turned it into a fairy tale, a sweet dream.

Tenzou stared for an age at the depiction of Sai, of the man who'd chased Tenzou, accosted him, and whom Tenzou had yelled at and shoved aside. Sai: who had not left Tenzou alone in his thoughts, but who was far, far better off without Tenzou anywhere nearby. The broken could not fix the shattered; it was the blind leading the sick through a gauntlet. It didn't matter that Sai's eyes appeared every time Tenzou closed his. The fascination would pass, the stroke to his ego at gaining the interest of someone so interesting would fade, and this... token was nothing but misguided affection. Surely and absolutely and with finality: a mistake.

Tenzou put the portrait onto the countertop, dropped it like it might be a bomb about to explode. Carefully, and with a shaky hand, he twisted the other piece of paper that had arrived in the packet aright to read the words scrawled across it:  
 _  
Rest. Noun. 1. An instance or period of repose or a reprieve from strenuous enterprise. 2. The remainder of something.  
_  
There was a line, the ink digging into the page in an unforgiving scratch that carved a runnel into the paper, and, beneath it:  
 _  
1a. What I do not get now that I know of you. 2a. What I think you are.  
_  
Tenzou traced the letters, confused and strangely heartbroken, but a screech interrupted Tenzou's blank reverie. He jerked, pulse leaping into an erratic beat, and he ran through the dining and living rooms into the reception hall, stopping next to the stairs leading to the second floor. A young girl in jeans and a sweatshirt collapsed against the railing, a full black trash bag held clenched and closed in one white fist. 

"Madeline?" Katherine called, running to the girl and grabbing her by the shoulders. "What is it? What's--"

"H-haunted!" Madeline stammered. "Oh my GOD, but that-that room's--"

"You went into the apartment?" Tenzou bellowed in a flash of panicky rage. Both women flinched.

"I'm sorry!" Madeline wailed, her eyes wide, green, and shining with unshed tears. "He said I should, and I don't wanna mess up on the first day, so--"

"What's going on?" Mark asked, stalking into the room and looking from Katherine to Tenzou to Madeline. 

"She went into the apartment," Katherine explained.

"What?" Mark cried. "I told you that room was off limits."

"But then you told me to go in there, anyway!" Madeline trilled. "You said I should clean out the roses! I heard you!"

"What are you talking about?" Mark asked, and everyone began speaking at once. Tenzou slowly swiveled his neck to watch the railing on the second floor. Nothing moved, nothing stirred, but it was as though the house held a collective breath.

"Enough!" Tenzou called, and three heads turned to him. "Mark," Tenzou said, forcing himself to look at the man he questioned. "Who is this girl?"

"She's my sister's kid," Mark answered. 

"Why is she in my house?" Tenzou asked, trying to remain calm and tensing every part of his body to stop trembling.

"She's in school," Katherine answered. "Needed a job to help pay for her tuition, so--"

"And you _told_ her the rules, I assume?" Tenzou said.

Mark swallowed, nodded, and couldn't meet Tenzou's gaze. "I did, sir. I swear it. Told her not to go near that door on the second--"

"But you _did_!" Madeline said, wrenching free of Katherine's hold. She dropped the trashbag and put her hands on her hips. "You said to throw away the roses."

"I said no such--" Mark started.

"When?" Tenzou interrupted. Madeline looked at Tenzou, fierce but terrified. She shoved a piece of curly brown hair over her ear toward her ponytail, crossed her arms over her chest.

"When did he tell you that?" Tenzou asked as levelly as he could.

"I was upstairs dusting one of the rooms like Aunt Kathy said," Madeline explained, stabbing the air with one finger to indicate direction. "And Mark knocked on the door, said I should go down the hall and clean out the roses in the room, last on the right." 

"I was polishing the tile in the entry," Mark said, exasperated. "I no more went up there than I freakin'--"

Tenzou held up a hand to shut Mark up. "Did you see him? Your uncle? When he told you to do that?"

Madeline's mouth opened and closed. She frowned. "Well... no. I just heard him, right? But..." The girl wrung her hands, as though realizing what had happened and trying to rationalize it. Faint flutters of sympathy swirled within Tenzou, but very distantly. When Madeline continued, her voice was tremulous. "And I got a bag, went down the hall, and I found the room." She paused and went pale about the mouth.

Nausea crested on a low tide, and Tenzou's reality started to recede. "Then what happened?" he asked.

"I-I found the roses," Madeline said. "All... these... there's like a ton of dead..." She pursed her lips, bent, and grabbed the trash bag. "I put 'em in here, and I tried to open the curtains to see? 'cause none of the lights would freakin' work, and they... they shut... like..." She waved her hands toward one another, clapped them with a sharp report. "And I heard this... like... _sigh_ and..."

"My God," Katherine said.

"That's the craziest thing I've heard all year," Mark muttered.

"I'm sorry," Tenzou whispered, unable to tear his eyes away from a broken stem jutting up out of the black garbage bag. "But you need to get out. All of you."

"Mr. Asashi? I'm so sorry," Katherine said, approaching. "It won't happen again, I--"

"Leave, please," Tenzou repeated, trying to be civil, trying to be polite, but all he wanted to do was run into the kitchen, grab the goddamned portrait, dip it in lighter fluid, and watch the whole world burn. He couldn't even make the connection between dead flowers and fresh paint, but he knew there was one. Knew that he simply didn't want to see the obvious; didn't want to know or to understand.

"We're not quite through, yet--"

"No," Tenzou said, attempting to override Katherine's cautious composure. A chill arced through him like an electric current. It was a warning, and Tenzou ignored it.

"--but I'm sure we can--"

"I said _get out of our house_!" Tenzou roared, and the cleaning crew took a collective step in retreat. Tenzou's ears rang with adrenaline, there was a quiet crash, and in unison, everyone craned to look up the stairs. A picture in a frame flung itself off the wall, a table next to the banister warbled, wobbled, fell over, and a dervish of wind without source blew across the open landing, picked up momentum, rolled down the steps, and filled the entryway like a fist, knocking not into the gaping family, but into Tenzou. A shove, a hushed human screech over the rising discord, and Tenzou bent at the knees while skidding across the floor. 

"Holy shit!" Madeline screamed. She bolted for the door, Katherine hot on her heels. Mark started backing up slowly, and Tenzou lost the fight and fell onto his ass with a harsh grunt. An anvil weighed heavily on his chest, tried to crush his lungs, and he threw an arm up to block his face from a set of teeth that snapped in a gray blur of silent complaint. Profanity darkened the air, Tenzou's or Mark's, Tenzou didn't know.

"Mother of God," Mark said, crossing himself, and a moment later, Tenzou heard the sound of the van's engine coming to life over the howl of an impossible hurricane.

"I'm NOT fucking apologizing!" Tenzou yelled into the whipping chaos. It shook Tenzou like a rag doll. "They need to go!" The gusts picked up Madeline's trash bag and dumped the contents into the cyclone. 

"Oh, now that's goddamned mature of you!" Tenzou said, struggling to stand and getting tossed onto a rumpled rug. "You think making a mess will make me change my mind?" Tenzou raged. "Make me chase them down and tell them to keep ripping you to shreds?" Dried twigs, leaves, thorns, and painful memory burst to life, cracking in the gale and cutting Tenzou's hands and cheeks.

"Raise all the Cain you want," Tenzou said, curling onto his side. He ducked his head between his knees to protect himself from the pummeling remnants of bouquets, and he panted like a sprinter on the final leg of a race. "Won't matter. Nothing ever does." 

Windows opened, shut, opened, and the wind became flavored with frustration. Jack's cologne assaulted Tenzou's nostrils, made him weep. A vase fell, a glass broke, a door banged against the wall with a boom, and a vacuum cleaner toppled and scraped across the floor. Tenzou rolled out of the machine's way, weathering the storm, bleeding and shivering with the arctic chill. A mirror cracked and fell, shards tinkling, and Tenzou backpedaled away from the pile of makeshift daggers. 

And as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Tenzou sucked a hiccoughing breath that was in chorus with the whisper of collective debris falling to gravity's will. After a few seconds, he dared to lift his face, wipe the tears out of his eyes. A shape stood in the open doorway highlighted by the early morning light. Not quite a man, not quite a shadow, and gone, regardless, in a blink. On silent hinges, the front door closed with a forlorn click.

Tenzou sat in the foyer surrounded by broken fragments, twisted gnarls of stems, and cupped wrinkled palms of petals, choking on gasps that were half sob and half manic laughter. He thought of Sai, and collapsed in a heap, too weak to do anything but lay in a mess he knew only he could clean.

~*~

"Thank you, Neji," Tenzou said into the phone. He bent a paperclip in two until it snapped and jabbed himself with the brittle end. "I do appreciate it."

"Of course, Tenzou," Neji replied, smooth voice low and sleepy. "Anything I can do to help is most welcome. Rosemary's been my housekeeper since I moved out of Father's house and into my own. I trust her recommendations of the service industry implicitly."

"As well you should," Tenzou agreed, reclining in his chair in his office at the Asashi Firm. It was Wednesday, it was snowing, and Tenzou didn't think the end of this conversation was ever going to arrive. There was a tap at the door, and Tenzou covered the receiver with a palm. "Come in," he said.

"I have to say, I'm a little surprised," Neji continued while Aadi snuck in and dropped off a stack of forms, a proposal, and pertinent mail into the box on Tenzou's desk. Tenzou smiled at the boy and nodded in dismissal. "I thought you were pleased with your cleaning team."

"Family troubles," Tenzou said vaguely, thinking of Mark's gruff exterior when the man had come back to reclaim the abandoned equipment. The exchange had been brief and had culminated in Tenzou handing over a check that was well in excess of what he owed. Mark took it and left. "Disagreement of sorts, I think. Not really my business."

"I see," Neji said, as though the beloved brat did, indeed, understand far too much of the situation. He usually did. There was even a time Tenzou could vaguely recall when Tenzou had enjoyed that kind of insight. Had helped Neji tune its strings, and delighted in being witness to Neji's improvement.

Tenzou repressed a sigh. "I'll give your Rosemary a call and get names. Nice to chat with you."

"This was a chat?" Neji asked, dryly.

"Good bye, Neji." Tenzou hung up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

"Excuse me, sir," Aadi said, poking his head and nothing else around the door once again. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, Aadi, I'm fine, thank you."

"Coffee? Tea?"

"No, Aadi." Tenzou shuffled paperwork in a self-important sort of way, hoping the boy would take the hint.

Aadi cleared his throat. "Er, there's a, uhm, group of us going out for, ah, drinks? This evening? And--"

"And as the new man in the building, they put you up to the task of asking the ogre if he wanted to go?" Tenzou said, kindly, but feeling every one of his thirty-six years.

"I don't think the term 'ogre' was used, precisely, sir," Aadi said, smile flickering.

Tenzou grunted and sliced into an invitation with a metal opener. A fraction of Aadi's head withdrew from the office, and Tenzou told himself chuckling over such a sign of intimidation was inappropriate. "Tell them the answer is still no, but I appreciate the monthly attempt."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

The door closed, and Tenzou scrapped the scrawling invitation and dragged the proposal closer. He could get through it today, see if it was a viable project at all and review the outlined time frame to check for insanity. He picked up the tome and yanked an oversized envelope out from underneath it, but stopped himself before flicking the latter into the inbox.

ASASHI was typed, this time, but it was the only label. No stamp, no address, and when Tenzou squeezed the item inside, he knew exactly what the letter contained. There was another one still lying on the kitchen island at his house. Tenzou had eaten out for every meal since the first package had arrived. He knew it wasn't fear. No, that was just silly. He simply didn't want to face the damned thing. Gift or curse or reminder or whatever in the hell it was. Tenzou had enough problems sweeping an endless track of plant matter out of his entryway, thanks much. He didn't have time to deal with infantile, though creative, stalkers.

Tenzou raked fingers through his hair, dragged the blunt nails to scratch, and sat with the painting at his fingertips for a long time. The fish tank behind him burbled, the snow outside fell in fluffy sheets, and Tenzou wished his phone would ring or Aadi would come back or his laptop would ding to remind him of a meeting he'd forgotten.

There was no reprieve, however, and Tenzou picked up the metal opener. For a crazy instant, he thought about stabbing the package over and over; just to make sure it didn't bleed. The temptation to stab himself for the same reality check would be too much, though, Tenzou knew. So instead, Tenzou ripped the heavy paper, the tearing obnoxiously loud and slow, and he removed another piece of canvas, letting it fall to rest on the blotter.

This time Sai sat cross-legged on a stone floor. In his hands he held a massive, ancient book. The edges rested on his knees and the pages were thick and wavy and edged in gold. The tome was opened to the middle, and brilliant, red-orange light erupted from the paper. Words danced off the very pages, images entwined with them: an impossible flying creature with beak and elephant trunk, a naked woman with knives in her hair, a monkey holding an umbrella, a fish with a pig's snout, a chained dragon, a kneeling man with a blindfold made of barbed wire, and a hundred other little things. The pictures wrapped around Sai's bare shoulders, slithered across his temples, hung from the tips of his bangs. His eyes glowed by the light of the book, and his lips were parted in awed fascination.

The scrap of paper that came with this painting had the same hurried handwriting of the other, and a similar theme:  
 _  
Knowledge. Noun. Information gained through education and/or experience.  
_  
And, lower, under another engraved line:  
 _  
What I want and need of and from you.  
_  
Tenzou smacked his lips, nodding at absolutely nothing. He tipped to the side, retrieved his phone from his pocket. He hit two buttons and put the thing to his ear.

"Hey," Kakashi said, a second later, warm and affectionate.

"You working tonight?" Tenzou asked.

"I can be, why?"

"Good. I'll see you in an hour."

"Sure, but--"

Tenzou cut Kakashi off with a harsh tap to the screen. He gathered the painting, its envelope, and the threatening definition and left without a word of explanation or a backward glance.

~*~

Many years ago, Tenzou had asked Kakashi why his bar was called "Glow". It wasn't the strangest name for a bar that Tenzou had ever heard -- that award probably went to Brown Bare Ass -- but it wasn't terribly typical, either. Kakashi had shrugged, glanced around his home away from home, and smiled. "A bar should be a place of refuge," Kakashi had said. "An oasis with more than water. A beacon, but one that doesn't warn ships or call down superheroes in bad capes. Just a place with friendly people who treat you like family, good beer, better food, and an atmosphere that lights you up on the dark days."

Kakashi could be a truly poetic sap, but Tenzou had to admit, Glow was more often than not a safe haven; one of the only places in town where Tenzou could go for a drink or a bite and not feel immediately overwrought and claustrophobic.

Tenzou exited the train and quickened his steps once he got to street level, passing the clothing store, James, and the assortment of shops selling everything from diamonds to Italian sports cars to body wash made from yak's urine or whatever the hell the latest trend was. Tourists oozed along Twenty-Second Avenue, which cut straight through the heart of Monoshizukanohi's Fashion District and led toward the upscale housing on the far side of the quarter. Glow stood on the corner of Twenty-Second Avenue and Winchester Street, its wooden doors tall and imposing with shining golden handles. Tenzou stood aside while a couple entered ahead of him, and then Tenzou stepped into the heated warmth of the bar.

Pool tables clacked to Tenzou's left, and in the back near the kitchen, Tenzou saw Gaara at a makeshift DJ booth, setting up to spin. Tenzou had been on the very periphery of the happenings between Gaara and Kiba and the rest of the bunch, but even he could tell that Gaara seemed... as close to the word "happy" as Tenzou had ever witnessed. Apparently all it took was one stubborn man, some gunfire, and a near-death experience. Tenzou made note.

Kakashi was behind the bar, polishing the wood with a cloth towel. It was only a little after six, but already it was setting up to be a busy one at Glow. Kakashi set a drink down in front of a man with long, white hair, smiled, and waved to Tenzou. Heather, Kakashi's second in command, swooped out of the kitchen followed by two serving girls in jeans so tight they should be illegal. 

"Hey," Kakashi said, drying his hands with lifted eyebrows. "You want to...?"

"Office?" Tenzou asked, hugging the paintings tucked under his arm tighter.

"Sure." Kakashi gestured toward the swinging door leading into the kitchen, and Tenzou stalked ahead. 

"Tenzou!" Asuma called over the sizzle of searing steak. "Good to see you!"

"Asuma," Tenzou returned, nodding to the other man just before Asuma smacked a busboy on the back of the head in admonishment for some slight. The busboy cried out, Asuma barked orders, and Tenzou shouldered his way into Kakashi's office, practically falling into one of the chairs on the guest side of the desk.

"What you got there, chief?" Kakashi asked, shutting them into the room and sitting across from Tenzou.

"I'm not sure," Tenzou said. He gingerly set the paintings down and shrugged out of his coat.

"Oh good. A mystery." Kakashi smiled what had to be the world's most aggravating knowing grin. "Is this going to be like Twenty Questions or Russian Roulette?"

"More the former, I hope." Tenzou sat rigidly straight and filled Kakashi in on the art show, the strange conversation with the boy who claimed to be the real Sai, the chase through Chinatown, the argument, and the arrival of the two paintings. He left out the bits about Jack's ghost. Kakashi really didn't need another reason to remind Tenzou that there was medication for everything these days, spectres to depression to IBS.

"Huh," Kakashi grunted, rocking and swiveling thoughtfully. "It does sound like you've got a bit of a situation."

"Good of you to recognize a pattern," Tenzou echoed.

Kakashi winked and rubbed his chin. "What are you thinking?"

"That somehow this kid got my home address and knows where I work," Tenzou groused.

"The magic of the Internet," Kakashi said with a sweep of his arms. "It'd be pretty easy to track that down, Tenzou."

"Maybe for him," Tenzou grumbled.

"For you, too," Kakashi said. "It's called Google. I think it's even been officially added into the dictionary as a verb."

"That's the other thing," Tenzou said, stroking the manila envelope. "He sent these notes with the paintings."

Kakashi leaned forward. "Notes?" 

"Yeah. Here." Tenzou laid out the paintings and placed the slivers of rough-handled paper on top of each. He watched Kakashi closely: saw the slight parting of lips, the tiny ring of white appear around pupils, the tightening of shoulders. 

Kakashi wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "These are incredible," he said, indicating the paintings. "Probably worth a fortune."

"If they're the real deal," Tenzou said.

Kakashi looked up. "You don't think they are?"

"I don't know what the hell to think." Tenzou touched an edge. "I don't know who this kid is, why he's doing this, what he wants. I don't even know if the boy I met is the same person who's painting this shit."

"It's not shit," Kakashi said, soft but pointed. 

"You're right," Tenzou conceded. "I'm the pile of shit, here, not him."

Kakashi sighed, and his chair squeaked with his lean. He yanked open a desk drawer, lifted a false bottom, and slapped a green folder in front of Tenzou. "That your boy?" 

With one finger, Tenzou encouraged the file to fall open. Paperclipped to a pile of forms and typed data was a sheet of digital prints, all in miniature to fit on the page. Tenzou drew it closer and held his head in his hands. There was Sai, impossibly young, getting out of a limo. Sai, entering a huge house that looked more like a castle than anything else. Sai, standing next to Danzou, and even though the kid's expression was a carefully crafted neutral mask, Tenzou could see sadness pull the corners of Sai's mouth south.

"When did you take these?" Tenzou asked.

"I didn't take anything," Kakashi corrected. "But if you think anybody just gets to waltz onto Neji's, my, or our property to slap paint on a wall in the middle of the night without being investigated, you _have_ gone soft."

"He's so young."

"He's nineteen there," Kakashi said. "Twenty-two, now."

"Jesus," Tenzou whispered, and he traced photographed air next to a two-dimensional Sai.

"I pulled the file after I saw you talking to the kid at the show, and after he came to me asking questions."

"You're a fucking bastard, by the way." Tenzou shook his head violently, his fingernail following the miniscule curve of Sai's lower lip. "Shouldn't be encouraging such things."

"He asked your name, Tenzou. I didn't think it was a state secret."

"Proving yet again, that even you can be wrong."

"That's a matter of piss-poor opinion," Kakashi said. "'Sides, the boy looked like he'd just met Santa Claus and would sob all over me if I didn't say the red suit was at the cleaners and the sleigh was parked out back."

"Damn it," Tenzou muttered, clasping his hands and ignoring how they tingled. He had a scratch on a knuckle from a splinter. He picked at it. "What else do you know about the kid?"

"It's all there," Kakashi said. "And that's your copy of the file if you want it."

"Give me the abstract, would you?"

"Gone soft _and_ lazy."

"Kakashi," Tenzou said in a voice meant to be a snarl but came out a whisper.

"Sai Tamazaki," Kakashi dictated without further prompt, "born October 17th, 1989 right here in Monoshizukanohi General. Middle class parents, owned a restaurant. They died in a car crash when Sai was only two. A guardian, one Danzou Muro, gained custody thereafter. Danzou used to be involved with the Japanese government, retired here with dual citizenship some twenty years ago. Sai made it to kindergarten art class before a teacher spotted talent. He was deemed a prodigy, had his first art show when he was six years old. He was a millionaire by the time he was ten. Danzou and Sai moved out of their humble abode and into an old castle that got imported here from overseas and abandoned when the original family passed away. The true definition of fixer-upper, really, but they must have gotten it livable, because that's where Sai and Danzou now reside." Kakashi shrugged, hands behind his head and foot propped on the desk.

Tenzou clasped his hands tighter. "No other family?"

"Nope."

"And school?"

"Tutors." Kakashi's lips formed a smile's demented cousin. "Danzou's a bit overprotective."

"Any mention of abuse?"

"No," Kakashi said, frowning. "You know something I don't?"

"Not a goddamned thing." Tenzou scrubbed at his face. "And even if I did, the fuck would there to be done about it? Kid's of age, now. Danzou's not even technically his guardian anymore, right?"

"It's true," Kakashi stated in that modulated tone that meant he was trying too hard to be amenable.

"What?" Tenzou snapped.

"Nothing," Kakashi said. "Just that I've not seen you this interested in anything or anyone in a long time."

"I'm not _interested_ ," Tenzou hissed, a wash of fear dousing his insides. "I'm being targeted by a boy who's become fixated on me for some stupid reason."

"Right."

"Goddamnit, Kakashi!" 

"What? I'm fucking agreeing with you!"

Tenzou tried to recreate the scent of primer, gloss, and stain, but he was too addled for tranquility exercises. He snatched the file, snapped it shut, shoved it into his armpit. "I don't need this." He grabbed his coat.

"You're right," Kakashi said, and the tone shot a shaft of ice up Tenzou's spine. Kakashi stood, swift and sure, and picked up the paintings.

Tenzou lunged across the desk, palm smacking laminate, and grabbed Kakashi's wrist. "What are you doing?"

"Getting rid of what you don't need." Kakashi regarded Tenzou with a perfect poker face. He tried to get away, and Tenzou tightened the grip. 

"How?" Tenzou demanded.

"Dunno," Kakashi said, casually. "Lock it away. Burn it. Hell, I could probably sell it for a mint."

"No," Tenzou rasped, an ancient well starting to fill within Tenzou and weeds beginning to burst from dry, crusted dirt. Tenzou wrenched the image of Sai in the bed out of Kakashi's clutches and hugged it to his chest. He couldn't fucking _breathe_ , the room was spinning, he didn't know what the hell was going on, but Kakashi _couldn't_ \--.

"Easy there," Kakashi said, tender and quiet and with a palm on Tenzou's heaving shoulder. "You'll bend it. Let me help you?"

Numb with guilt, terror, anger, and hopelessness, Tenzou allowed Kakashi to repackage the paintings in their original wrapping. Kakashi was gentle with the art, loving, even, and he put the notes on nouns in with the canvases, stacked the two gifts with care, and put the file about Sai on top. 

"I have to stop this," Tenzou said, miserably.

"You have all the tools you need to do it," Kakashi said, and the smarter part of Tenzou knew the man wasn't agreeing with Tenzou in the slightest.

"It's too damned strange."

"I've seen weirder," Kakashi deadpanned.

"He has no idea what he's doing."

"Then perhaps you should clue the kid in on the action?"

Tenzou shoved his arms into his coat when Kakashi held it for him. "It's just wrong."

"Uh huh."

"Foolish."

"Usually," Kakashi said, nodding.

"This isn't the way it should be."

"Only if you say so." Kakashi was the epitome of sympathy, the embodiment of rationale, and when Kakashi tried to hug him, Tenzou shoved his friend and made for the exit and the escape.

"Good luck, man," Kakashi called.

"No such thing," Tenzou said, but too weakly to be convincing to anyone at all.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story, world, and originals belong to me, Darkprism.  
> Don't own the Naruto men.  
> Made up the last names as necessary.  
> Next chapter up in a couple of weeks.
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> <3


	5. Be Careful What You Wish For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sai makes another move, the cops get involved, and Tenzou picks up Sai's challenge.

**Title:** Lessons in Living Chapter 5: Be Careful What You Wish For  
 **Series:** Monoshizukanohi//Naruto AU  
 **Author:** Darkprism  
 **Genre:** Drama/Romance/Kink  
 **Rating:** Overall Mature.   
**Pairing:** Tenzou  & Sai and other men in my Monoshizukanohi 'verse  
 **Word Count:** Ongoing  
 **Warnings/Notes:** THIS chapter: Language, remembered violence, nudity, D/s relationships, anal, oral, sadism/masochism, etc.  
 **Spoilers:** None whatsoever.

 **Summary:** A year ago, Tenzou lost the only man he ever loved, and the only man he believes he ever will love. So when an artistic prodigy many years Tenzou's junior enters his life with determined demands for love, play, and safe harbor, Tenzou is forced to face his past, remember his promises, and challenge his presumption that forever after is final. 

 

The train ride to the parking lot where Tenzou left his truck was a long one. He climbed into the H3X, locked the doors, and banged his forehead on the steering wheel a few times before cranking the gas-guzzling engine and heading home. The paintings rested in the seat next to Tenzou: a silent, watchful passenger riding shotgun. The night was clear and cold, the stars bright and taunting, and Tenzou couldn't shake a frozen image from that last mission, the one that ousted him from the armed services forever. They'd been in no man's land, just outside the Israeli border. It'd been early, crisp and still, just like tonight, and when a teenager with an assault rifle had opened fire, Tenzou had been looking to his right, in the act of giving the signal to halt and regroup. The bullets had cut Corporal Ritter in half. One second you're whole and human and walking, and the next you're torn, strewn, hamburger lying steaming on the ground.

All three impact sites where Tenzou had taken rounds to the chest, gut, and thigh woke up and flipped off Tenzou in old, familiar rebellion. By some miracle he'd survived long enough for help to arrive, by another one he didn't have any permanent nerve damage, and for the final act of God's kindness, Jack Lawson, Tenzou's high school crush, had found Tenzou in civilian life. Tenzou knew exactly how and when he'd used up all his Get Out of Jail Free cards. He just wasn't sure the usage had been advantageous for anybody.

Tenzou rubbed his leg, kneading it, and rounded a sweeping corner leading into his cul-de-sac. It probably didn't say anything good about his state of mind that his first thought upon seeing the flashing blue lights was that his dead lover had finally said enough was enough and set the house on fire.

It was probably even more telling that the next thought he had after ghostly arson was that his stalker had done it, instead. Tenzou made excuses to himself for the state of his obvious insanity, and when he rolled down the window, he rationalized that smelling for smoke was normal and not, say, an indicator that Tenzou should experience the inside of a strait jacket sooner rather than later. Tenzou hit the brakes and came to a halt next to an officer taking a statement from Diane, who was wrapped in a red robe with fur trim holding her poor dog in a suffocating clench. 

"Can I help you, sir?" the officer said.

"That's him!" Diane interjected, one finger tipped with a pink nail pointing at Tenzou in accusation. "That's my neighbor, Tenzou Asashi."

"Sir?" the officer inquired, tiredly.

"I live here," Tenzou confirmed, wallet already in hand to show as proof. "What happened?"

"The alarm was triggered, sir," the officer explained, giving Tenzou back his identification. "The security team came out, found evidence of a break-in, and called us."

"Shit," Tenzou muttered, but he was more exhausted by the news than worried for his home.

"We would have informed you earlier, sir, but we were unable to reach you."

"Oh," Tenzou said, guiltily thinking of his cell phone, which was off and in his coat pocket. "Ah, yes. I was... unavailable." 

The cop nodded, in sympathy or sheer unconcern, Tenzou wasn't sure. "There are more men doing a sweep, sir, so if you could wait here until we know it's safe--"

The radio receiver on the officer's shoulder clicked. "White, over," it chirped.

Officer White pressed a button. "Go ahead." 

"Interior of the house, shop, and perimeter are secure. Nobody here. Just broken glass and paint."

"Is that Shiranui?" Tenzou asked, recognizing the voice. 

White nodded. "You know him?"

"Yeah. He and Namiashi are friends of mine."

White's lips quivered at the edges. "No shortage of tragedy, is there?" he quipped, and Tenzou tried to return the smile. "Go on in, Mr. Asashi." White hit the radio again. "Owner's here. Coming your way, now. Says he knows your ass."

"That's an affirmative, White. Biblically, even."

Tenzou snorted, waved to White, and steered the Hummer along the drive. The security company's sedan was parked in front of a cruiser, and Tenzou pulled in behind the police car. Every light in his house was ablaze, the front door open, and Genma trotted toward the truck as Tenzou climbed out.

"What's the situation?" Tenzou asked, shaking Genma's hand brusquely, ashamed of his sweaty palm but entirely unable to get his heart out of his throat.

"Looks like vandalism," Genma answered. "No forced entry to any of the doors. Rai did the sweep of the house, said if it was burglary, they must have taken toilet paper, because everything seemed to be in place. Shop looks good, too."

Tenzou finally got his breathing under control, and tried not to slump to the ground in defeat. "So, what, broken window?" he asked, remembering Genma mentioning glass on the radio.

"Ah, yeah." Genma sucked on a cheek and cocked his head, gesturing for Tenzou to follow. "Something you probably need to see over here."

Tenzou didn't comment, falling into step behind Genma in silence. They passed the kitchen windows and walked on the sidewalk toward the garage. The stairs leading up to the apartment where Jack died and still lived, in a manner of speaking, were on the far side, and Tenzou stared at the stone corner of the house, waiting for an invisible hurricane to come screeching at his head.

"We don't know... quite what to make of this," Genma said, pulling a toothpick from a thin box he kept in his shirt pocket and putting it between his teeth. He ducked under a cluster of trees that blocked the view of the garage bays to the driveway. Jack had insisted on that bit of landscaping, citing that a view of metal doors, no matter how ornate or stately, mucked with the house's aesthetic. Tenzou had argued the point, saying they added symmetry to the structural lines, but he'd been overruled as usual.

"Make of what?" Tenzou asked, stooping under limbs and slogging over mounds of mulch. The security guys were ahead of them, facing the house and making notes. Genma didn't bother to clarify, and Tenzou didn't blame him. Tenzou stood in the glare of the mounted safety lights and a halogen spotlight that had been thrown on the... well, one really couldn't call it vandalism, exactly.

On the left bay door was a painting of Tenzou sitting on one half of an iron park bench. The rendition was breathtaking, akin to looking at an inked mirror. Tenzou's reflection wore a black trench coat, dark jeans and shoes, and stared off to the side, lost in thought. Wind ruffled his brown hair, the highlights so illuminating, it would be a shock to touch the streaked strands and discover they were two dimensional. Leaves in golds, reds, and browns blew around on the paved walk in front of the bench and created an illusion that they'd spill off the doors and onto the real ground. Behind Tenzou was a pristine lake, brilliant blue sky clear of clouds, and gently bent trees depicted in the height of autumn.

On the right bay door, Sai sat on the other half of the bench. He wore a long-sleeved shirt that was the color of a maple leaf in the fall, a sort of silken, umber-orange, and his pants matched. The fabric, much like Tenzou's hair, appeared supple and touchable. Sai's short, black hair was mussed by the breeze, his lips were full and pink, his rich eyes were wide, the lashes thick, and he looked with frank longing at Tenzou. Whereas Tenzou faced forward with head turned, Sai sat sideways, torso leaning toward Tenzou. One of Sai's hands was on the bench, sliding closer to Tenzou's side of the garage, the fingertips disappearing behind the partition separating the doors. The entire painting used tones of color that matched the stone, almost blended, and it didn't look out of place or odd at all. The mural seemed right at home.

"Tenzou?" Genma asked from far, far away.

"Yeah?"

"You all right?"

"Sure. Why?"

"'Cause you look like you might fall the fuck over. Sir."

Tenzou blinked dry eyes and rubbed them with thumb and forefinger. He did feel dizzy and weak, but that was probably because he'd skipped dinner. And lunch. Not the smartest move he'd made in the last month or so, but not the dumbest, either. "I'm fine," he said to Genma, who didn't look convinced.

"Asashi?" Raidou said, approaching with reverent caution. Tenzou always did like Rai. Man was calm, collected, and level-headed, all things Tenzou admired and that were good for Genma, too; they balanced one another nicely. "I found this in the garage." He handed Tenzou a large rock that belonged in a gravel bed flanking the house's front doors. "And this was wrapped around it."

Tenzou took the yellow legal sheet with his free hand and tried to appear far calmer and far more together than he truly was while reading it.   
_  
Rendezvous. Noun. 1. A meeting at appointed place or time.  
_  
A line, a doodle, and beneath them, more words that Tenzou mouthed while reading. They had a gritty quality to them, as though written on the paper with the rock beneath it:  
 _  
1a. What comes next.  
_  
"Is it a threat?" Raidou asked.

"No," Tenzou replied. He dropped the rock, shaking his head and folding the piece of paper to tuck it into his jacket pocket. "Not a threat. Not burglary. And not vandalism."

Genma arched an eyebrow and the toothpick moved from one side of his mouth to the other. "Oh? Then what are we calling it?"

Tenzou swallowed. "A commission."

"Come again?" Genma chuckled.

"Are you saying you paid for this to be painted on your property, Asashi?" Raidou asked.

"Oh, I haven't paid for the work quite yet, but rest assured, the artist will get what's coming to him." Tenzou held Raidou's expressive gaze without faltering, and sweat rolled down Tenzou's flanks beneath his clothing.

"And the brick through the window was, what, exactly?"

Tenzou leveled a look at Genma, challenging, and Genma managed to maintain eye contact for approximately two seconds before dipping his head. "Are you accusing me of some wrongdoing, Officer?" Tenzou casually inquired. 

"Asashi," Raidou began. "We're all friends, here, let's--"

"We're not accusing you of a damned thing, yet," Genma said to the grass through his teeth before forcing his neck to straighten. He glared at Tenzou, and Tenzou couldn't blame him for the broiling irritation. "What you do with your own time and your own things is your business, and while I respect all your Master Dom Mover-Shaker bullshit, we're the ones with badges and guns and we still need answers for our report."

"He's right, Asashi," Raidou confirmed. "We understand your position in the community both public and private, but we will have your statement, now, if you don't mind."

Tenzou made a frustrated noise. He didn't like lying. He hated having to explain to the authorities anything about the ongoing insanity of his life. And he resented the fuck out of Sai for putting him in this position. This day couldn't get any longer or more angst-ridden if it tried. "I'm sorry," he said to Genma, who grunted but unwound at the honesty in Tenzou's voice. Nevermind that Tenzou was sorrier he breathed at that moment than for any slight he may have inflicted on Genma. "Long day, and this was a... shock. The police, I mean," he clarified quickly. "The man who painted this is a friend. I'm sure he just got done, tried to call me, probably got irritated when I didn't answer my phone because I was in a meeting and it was off." 

"So he did what anybody would do in that situation. Put a brick through your window to alert the cops." Genma bit the toothpick in two, eyebrow arched.

"Artist types," Tenzou said, contorting his features into a smile that was more a baring of teeth. "You know how they can be."

"Sure."

"So you won't be pressing charges, then?" Raidou asked.

"No." Tenzou sighed. "No point. I asked for this."

Raidou squinted at Tenzou, sizing him up, and must have decided that whatever Tenzou was going through, he was resolved to doing it alone without the aid of men in uniform. "All right. We'll get the paperwork finished and get out of your hair."

"Thank you," Tenzou said. Genma shook his head, Raidou waved over the security guys, and Tenzou endured questions, odd looks, and clipboards with documents that needed his signature. He didn't have it in him to force smiles or appropriate behavior. He didn't even know what "appropriate" meant, anymore, really. Social norms had never exactly been his thing, and he had no idea when he'd started caring about living up to them. Maybe when Jack died. Maybe when Jack got sick. Everything had dwindled to a stream of people and opinions and pleas to the outside world for help and solace and hope. They'd wanted a miracle and had been willing to do anything to find it.

But Tenzou had used up all his favors on himself.

Tenzou stood next to a tree that Jack had planted while whistling show tunes and stared at the painting until the spotlight winked out. He picked up the rock as the doors slammed on the cruiser and car, and he walked to his woodshop listening to tires crunch twigs and gravel on the driveway. He punched a code on the numeric lock, and as soon as he stepped inside, sawdust, metal, and stain flooded his nostrils and soothed his heart. He flicked on a light switch, and the disc player came to life, too, filling the room with an aria from _Madam Butterfly._

The shop was square, the illumination florescent, and the floor sealed cement. It was orderly with plenty of room to work. He kept the machines clean and clear of debris and dust, stored pallets of planks in corners elevated off the floor and under dry wrap, and cabinets held all the more toxic chemicals, solvents, and paints in closed, labeled, containers. There were beaten tables dedicated to measuring, cutting, and sanding, and Tenzou used a woodstove to get rid of scraps and to keep warm. One section of the room was a graveyard of unfinished projects, half a chair here, most of a molding there, and in the back were the ghosts of completed furniture never to be used, draped in sheets of plastic that whispered in the breeze slipping through the ventilation windows. 

Staring at the rock in his hand, Tenzou paced to a table. He set the stone down next to a pile of unfinished picture frame edges. He pulled out the note, carefully unfolded it, and pressed it flat to the tabletop. He traced the lettering and knew he should be upset, possibly outraged. The anger at having to lie to cover Sai's ass should have been burbling just beneath the surface of his exhaustion. Hell, the confusion as to why Tenzou _chose_ to lie instead of to tell the truth and press charges should be rampaging his nervous system right about now. There'd been cops on his doorstep, for Chrissakes. He had a window to replace and a fucking mural defacing his property. Even if he didn't want the real authorities involved, he should probably call Kakashi; tell the man that things had escalated. It was now more than a couple pieces of harmless mail and a strangely broken attempt to communicate through dictionary pages. When the paint started flying and the blue lights began flashing, Tenzou was pretty sure that meant shit was getting real and getting personal. Maybe even dangerous, but Tenzou wasn't worried. Or angry. Or even remotely irritated. And he didn't call Kakashi because fuck if Tenzou knew what he would say.  
 _  
"Hey man, that Sai kid? He just painted a million dollar portrait on my garage that came with a rock wrapped in Websters, and the craziest thing is that it's not pissing me off... it's fuckin' doing it for me."  
_  
Tenzou cupped his cock through his slacks, closed his eyes, and breathed with the pulse that carried blood south and filled his length to plump and full. Anybody else with a dick would probably unzip and jack off until milk-white spray coated the object of Tenzou's odd but still valid object of affection. Especially while surrounded by wood, which simultaneously calmed Tenzou and reminded him of sex, fucking, begging, bondage: bent over beauties with nothing left in them but the love of their denied hard-ons and the sting of leather tails. 

Yeah, anybody else would masturbate and be done with it, but not Tenzou. It wasn't for lack of desire, and for once it wasn't some sort of flagellator punishment. It was a symptom. Because in addition to depression, anxiety, tendencies toward being a hermit, and a ghost infestation, Jack's death had also rendered Tenzou impotent. He could get hard, but he could not get off. Tenzou hadn't felt orgasm take him for over a year, now, and he knew that if he stood here and tried, it would end in the kind of frustration that made men crack and bomb buildings.

"Son of a bitch," Tenzou muttered. Pivoting, he stalked over to a tall tower that he'd designed and ripped away the plastic in a furious flurry. D-rings, arms, clasps, and braces, oh my, and Tenzou banged his forehead on the wide strut meant to be a support for a fully grown human body. "The hell is wrong with me?" he whispered, but he didn't really want to hear an answer in the rattle of metal or in the whine of winter wind. 

What he wanted more than anything was to be more confused by what he felt at that moment. He wanted to be in the dark like a good little toadstool, damp and dreary and covered in moss. Not three hours ago, he'd sat across from his best friend and maintained the façade of bold lies and staunch denials. It'd been an award-winning act, too. Tenzou could look back and see himself clearly from his current perspective of a man high up and roped in the metaphysical gallows. And now, thanks to a few strokes of ink, a rock, a French word, and an erection, Tenzou had a simple choice: own up or beat himself bloody on the bondage tower in the hopes that brain damage would do what three bullets hadn't managed.

Sai was a beautiful, damaged, talented, innocent who was not going away, and Tenzou didn't want him to. 

"Damn it," Tenzou spat. He braced his hands on the arms of the tower, wrenched and shook the structure, smacked a palm against the sanded and polished wood. Panting, he tipped his chin and stared at the beams criss-crossing over the concrete, and he was undoing his pants before his brain could once again caution his motor skills that this wasn't going to end well. He moaned without a shred of pride when he fisted himself and started to stroke. Jesus, but it was nerve-singing nice, and God, but he'd missed pleasure, another's touch, another's voice, another's mouth. He shut his eyes.  
 _  
Jack was suspended, hooded and hooked with lower face unhidden. Jack's hands were in mittens, wrists and ankles fettered. Leather polish, sweat, and the scent of men struggling were heady on the air. Tenzou was half bare, nothing but leather on his legs, boots on his feet, and a harness outlining his chest. Jack liked the way the rings and rivets didn't give over the muscles they highlighted. Jack liked the sensation of Tenzou's chest hair and nipples and gloved fingers running over reddened skin. And Jack fucking loved to be kissed-touched-teased senseless in between sets of ridiculous anguish. Tenzou bit, Tenzou tasted, Tenzou sucked a ringed dick to the back of his throat and spat the dribbles of pre-cum onto the lips of his moaning lover. And then Tenzou circled: a predator playing with his dinner. He whispered. He caressed. He picked up a paddle that Tenzou used like a wrecking ball. He'd bruise and maim until Jack's ass and thighs looked like the goddamned Milky Way: a galaxy of blue, black, and red giant stars.  
_  
Tenzou slid to his knees, gasping for air. He blinked to clear his vision, shivering in some nasty combination of unsatisfied lust and fearful chill. Wrapping an arm around the tower's main beam, Tenzou toyed with the wet head of his dick, hips rocking on their own volition. He wanted to fuck. He wanted to dominate. And that was the problem, wasn't it?

" _Mmph_." Tenzou grunted through his nose, unsteadily turned, and collapsed onto the ground, pants around his knees and underwear askew. Visions of Jack, helpless and hungry and more incredible with every ounce of unpolluted want, kept flashing on the insides of Tenzou's eyelids. The pictures were distant, though. Far away, fading, and untouchable as Tenzou kept stroking himself, but with a lazier pace set in time to a lolling head attached to a neck that couldn't quite carry its weight.

Tenzou wasn't afraid of death, he wasn't traumatized by how his lover died, and he didn't think that moving on would do Jack a disservice. It'd been long enough that Tenzou could acknowledge, in the solitude of his own mind, that change was something that had to happen, like it or not. Misery, however, was far, far easier. Far safer, and, for the benefit of others, probably far wiser.

Because if Tenzou tried, if he made the effort by meeting, dating, or fucking, then he knew he'd want to Dom the boy, too, and that meant Tenzou would want it to mean more than a chance encounter, one night stand, boyfriend, or even partner. Tenzou craved the intimacy he'd lost with Jack: lover, soulmate, boy, submissive. The ache for that kind of connection, power exchange, and trust ran so deep in Tenzou, it was part of his molecular makeup. It infused his red blood cells, it beat in his veins, and it festered in his lymph nodes like a disease once inflicted and without a hope in hell of immunity to unmake.

There was a library of self-help books, philosophical argument, and psychological counsel that enumerated the dangers and the stupidity of the "What If" game. But all that better sense, greater wisdom, and lengthy experience didn't stand a chance against Tenzou's single, insurmountable, shattering fear: What if Kakashi and all Tenzou's friends were _wrong_ and Tenzou was _right_? What if there really was no one else but Jack for Tenzou? What would proving that do to him and to the poor man Tenzou dragged into this mess? Nothing pleasant, of that Tenzou was sure.

Tenzou swallowed and shifted his ass on the chilly shop floor. One foot lost its purchase, and his knees splayed wider. His hand was still throwing sparks into the overflowing oil drum of pent up sexual frustration, but Tenzou didn't think anything would catch. He chuckled at himself, at what such desperation must look like. Sure, he saw that lightning struck and struck often in this city. Kakashi got a second chance. Neji's wish came true. Gai came to senses in Lee's arms. Freakin' Gaara found hope. 

Three bullets. Three miracles. Asking more was tempting fate, and she was the cruelest mistress of them all.   
_  
Jack made the same noise each and every time Tenzou pushed inside Jack's body: a groaning sigh that was shocked, relieved, and pained all in one. Shock that sex was at last on the menu, relief that now they were finally getting somewhere, and pain because being thus joined finished the job that the whips, tails, chains, and agony started. Making love stripped Jack raw and hung him out to dry in Tenzou's embrace. If he was physically capable, Jack would usually beg for faster or harder, sometimes slower and merciful, depending on what had come in the scene before and what was to happen after. And in the confines of Mastery, Tenzou would typically deny Jack, at least for a while, for what he requested was often not what he needed. Sometimes being at Tenzou's mercy got Jack off sooner, sometimes it earned Tenzou sweet, sweet whines and whimpers, occasionally it brought on tears, curses, or a combination thereof._

 _But sometimes, when Jack could speak and was blissed out beyond what either of them thought possible, Jack would smile a whimsical smile and say...  
_  
"It rarely hurts to ask."

Tenzou startled and bolted to his feet, adrenaline screeching and reducing time to a crawl and heightening his senses. He spun around, searching for whomever it was that seemed to speak directly in Tenzou's ear. He saw no one, and after he shoved his limp dick into his pants, he stalked the maze of sleeping furniture, glancing left and right for the perpetrator. The plastic rustled, the lights flickered and buzzed, and the sound of silence was deafening. Eerie. Patient. Tenzou stood frozen for endless seconds until he had to _do_ before he went completely out of his mind. 

The first piece Tenzou unveiled was a bench. The second was a suspension rig. The third a throne. When he got to the Saint Andrew's, which used to be his specialty, he was yelling over the sound of unfurling tarps. Incoherent and inarticulate, Tenzou bellowed and screamed until everything was uncovered. He gathered the wrapping, wadded it into a gigantic ball, and stormed to the trash can. He shoved the mess inside and slammed the metal lid with both hands, holding it down like it would try to fight him and breathing so hard he thought he might pass out. 

When the urge passed, Tenzou let go, staggering backward into the table where the rock and legal sheet still rested. Acting without thinking at all, he snatched them up and stalked to the door. He slapped off the lights, slammed the shop closed, and jogged along the sidewalk. He didn't stop until he was in front of Sai's latest attempt to get his attention, and he knelt before it. Tenzou placed the definition on the paved drive and used the stone as a paperweight.

"You want to meet me?" Tenzou asked the painted, beseeching boy. "Then fine. Let's meet."

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! Made up Tenzou's last name, yep, he drives an H3, and all the originals, plot, and world belong to me. Naruto boys do not. Hope to keep updating regularly. Thank everyone so much for reading.
> 
> Story takes place in Monoshizukanohi! Check out the profile for links leading to more info.
> 
> I own the world, the plot, and the originals. The Naruto boys are not mine.
> 
> Much love & murals,  
> <3Demented Dee


	6. Fortune Favors the Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tenzou and Sai have a nice, long chat...

Tenzou's cell phone was ringing. He opened one eye, cussed into his pillow, and thought of Kakashi in jail. The thought was pleasant enough to get him coordinating motor skills. He accidentally smacked the lampshade, cursed when the light rocked dangerously close to tipping over, and snatched the phone off the nightstand. The call was from, "UNKNOWN" and that made Tenzou's heart skip a beat, humorous thoughts of Kakashi, iron bars, and dropped soap aside.

"M'lo?" Tenzou answered. No one replied. He glanced at the screen and saw the call had already disconnected. 

"Well, fuck you very much," Tenzou muttered, setting the phone on the table and flopping back onto the bed. He'd just managed to shut his eyes when the landline started to ring. Tenzou blinked at the ceiling, rotated his head to stare at the glowing cradle holding the portable handset, and slowly rolled to switch on the lamp. The caller ID read, UNKNOWN NUMBER. Tenzou picked up the phone.

"Asashi," Tenzou answered in his best military direct voice. Static hissed, and the line went dead.

"The... hell...?" Tenzou killed the connection, and the first flutters of suspicious fear stirred in his guts. He waited in the silence of the still house. The drapes over the picture window to his right fluttered above the heat vents. The sheets were slightly damp, the pale gray cotton hitting him at the waist and covering his naked body. The down comforter was neatly folded at the bottom of the mattress. His bedroom door was open with a view to the hallway beyond, a nightlight glowing a soft green. His Colt was holstered and hanging on the headboard post within easy reach, loaded and ready. Nothing moved, and he couldn't tell the difference between his pulse and the faint ticking of a clock.

Blowing a slow breath, Tenzou twisted to hang up the phone, and the thing came to life in his hands. His cell phone rang, too, and the grandfather clock downstairs began to drone, which made no fucking sense as it was ten past two in the morning. Damned thing tolled only the hour.

All the screens read, "UNKNOWN" and Tenzou hit both the cell and the portable's connect buttons at the same time. "Hello?" he said, possibly too loudly, and the crack of static was the only answer. It lasted slightly longer, plenty long enough for Tenzou's pulse to begin to race, and then everything went dark and quiet yet again. Tenzou glanced at the portable phone's base, and dropped everything in a trained blur of motion to go for his weapon when something thumped onto the bed. He spun while raising the gun's barrel in a two-handed grip, aiming and ready. 

But nobody was there. Just the nightlight, the door, the edge of the mattress... and the file Kakashi had compiled about Sai now lying on the smooth sheet on what had once been Jack's side of the bed. Tenzou distinctly remembered leaving that folder downstairs after he'd come in from his tantrum in the shop and his declaration at the garage doors. He lowered the Colt, and bent with one arm extending toward the file. Before he got to it, however, the cover flipped open. 

Tenzou yelped and backpedaled. You would think that after a year of being haunted and tormented he would get used to these little stunts. It was one thing, he guessed, to go seeking Jack for comfort. It was another when Jack came calling for him. Tenzou sat rigid against the headboard, chest heaving, while a single page twitched, shifted, and scooted toward him. 

"Jack?" Tenzou asked. Nothing answered at first, but then the entire bed rocked like somebody had run into its side. Tenzou flailed and sat the gun down before he blew off his own dick.

"I'll take that as a yes," Tenzou muttered, picking up the piece of paper. It had Sai's basic information, the photo sheet clipped to it, and it took Tenzou probably longer than it should have to piece together what Jack wanted him to do. 

"I'm not calling anybody at two in the freakin' morning." Tenzou put the page back into the file, and the bed pitched again, but weaker this time. "That's insane." The phones started to ring, and for a second, Tenzou thought about marching downstairs out of the reach of any phone line, shoving his fingers in his ears, and singing show tunes at the top of his lungs. The image helped him from losing what was left of his mind.

"Enough!" Tenzou shouted, exhausted from the day and the deluge. He knew from experience that if he didn't do this now, his only option would be to go spend the night at a hotel. Sooner or later, though, he'd have to come home. At this point, he wasn't even sure moving would help. If Jack could make phones ring and beds rock, whisper to cleaning ladies, and appear in sunbeams, Tenzou was pretty sure a little thing like relocation wouldn't be a hindrance.

"You want to dial him for me, too?" Tenzou groused, leaning to read the phone number next to the castle residence address. He got his cell, unlocked the keys, and held the screen aloft. After a moment, he lowered it, saw that nothing had been entered, and typed in the digits. "Oh, well. Good thing, I guess. Doing that much might be _real_ interference." 

The bed bounced, but gently, and Tenzou translated it as a mild retort. He was so goddamned tired that he forgot to panic about calling his artistic stalker in the wee hours of the morning until the phone started to ring out. He almost found sanity and hung up, but after a mere one and a half tones, the quality of sound shifted to indicate someone had picked up. They didn't speak, however, and Tenzou threw a glare in what he imagined to be Jack's general direction. If the ass was fucking with him after all that--

"Is it you?" asked a quiet, deep voice that Tenzou recognized as Sai's. Well, thank God for small favors. If Sai's guardian had answered, Tenzou didn't exactly have a ready excuse handy.

"This is Tenzou," he said. 

"I wanted it to be you." Sai spoke in a breathy whisper too close to the speaker. Tenzou shivered when the timbre sent goosebumps down his spine and across his chest and arms.

"Looking forward to me getting in touch to say I'm having you arrested, mm?" Tenzou asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and resting his forearms on his thighs.

"You won't arrest me."

"How do you know?" Tenzou asked, amused and surprised by it.

Sai hesitated. "Because... because I gave you art."

Tenzou laughed, albeit manically. "Get out of a lot of trouble that way, do you?"

"No."

Tenzou waited for more, and when it didn't come, he sighed. "Sai, I'm calling because--"

"I had the phone in my studio," Sai interrupted, louder, now, and Tenzou blinked at the floorboards. "I never do that. But I thought... if you... I needed to answer. I don't sleep. Not really. Not much. And I was thinking about you. I'm painting you again. And you _called_. Nobody ever calls."

"Can't think as to why," Tenzou deadpanned, but Sai's genuine and innocent surprise was the kind of endearing truly dangerous to Tenzou's sense of propriety.

"You wouldn't have done it if you were really angry. So you're not. Are you?"

"That's what I was--"

"Tell me you're not."

"I can't tell you anything if you won't let me," Tenzou pointed out, but gently. It was, after all, the middle of the night and these were strange circumstances, and God help him, but Tenzou couldn't find it within him to channel the irritation or the rage he'd harbored earlier. Not when most of that shit had been at himself, not with Sai's husky voice panicked in his ear, and not after his decision to face this and put it to bed before it snowballed any further.

"I'm..." Sai's sigh was a roar that made Tenzou pull away and wince. "I like your voice."

"Thank you," Tenzou said absently. He scrubbed at his forehead with the side of one fist. "And no, I'm not really angry, but we do need to talk."

"We are talking."

"Face-to-face would be better, I think," Tenzou replied, patiently. "That's why I'm calling." He tried to ignore the exasperated part of himself that threw its hands up in the air at the idea of admitting he was calling a kid to arrange a hook up at half past go-fuck-yourself o'clock.

"Now?" Sai asked.

"What, now?" 

"Do you want to see me now?"

"Uh, it's... I was thinking maybe daylight would be more appropriate."

"I like night time. And it's easier for me to get away at night than it is by day."

"Get away?" Tenzou repeated, concern flaring.

"From... from work."

Tenzou didn't miss the stammer or the way Sai's voice fell to a whisper. "Sai, are you in some kind of... danger where you are?"

"Danger?" Sai sounded confused.

"Or trouble?"

"No."

"Well... good." Tenzou clucked his tongue. "If you want to meet now..." He trailed off. It wasn't like he was going to get much more rest, anyway. Especially not if Jack decided Tenzou should have agreed to the midnight rendezvous instead of waiting like a normal human being. It'd be better to get the conversation with Sai out of the way sooner rather than later, and, if Sai was less inconvenienced by the middle of the night, then so be it. "I can do that. There's a coffee shop in Shadgrove called The Addiction Feed."

"I know it."

"You do?" Tenzou was surprised. The place was a hole in the wall that catered to the kind of insomniac kept awake at night by conspiracy theories or obsessions with celebrities, government, or news as opposed to those people who just stayed up all night watching porn and jerking off.

"It's close to my house," Sai said.

"Perfect. See you there in... thirty?"

"Yes."

"All right, then." Tenzou started to say more, but Sai had already hung up. Tenzou chuckled and climbed out of bed to get dressed.

~*~

The sound of an old modem connecting to the Internet hissed when Tenzou walked into The Addiction Feed. The shop was dimly lit by low-wattage bulbs in dingy yellow and demonic red. The walls were papered with tabloid covers, conspiracy journals, and pictures of Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Elvis. The hodgepodge of scattered tables came in a range of sizes, and several of them were occupied by men in hoodies whose shadowy eyes were illuminated by their laptops. Tenzou's trench coat and surplus boots fit right in, and he stalked to the counter in the back left corner. It was encircled by a metal cage and sheets of Plexi Glass carved with air holes, very reminiscent of a rodent's lair.

A girl whose piercings added ten pounds to her one-hundred pound frame eyed Tenzou over the rim of her manga, bored. "Yeah?" 

"Large coffee. House blend's fine." Tenzou laid a five-dollar bill on the lip of counter and slid it under the cage wire.

"Sure." The girl took the money, put it in a jar, and shuffled to the bank of machines and containers along the wall. While she grabbed a cup and began to pour, a dark-haired, slender man got up from a metal folding chair situated in front of three computer monitors. His desk was covered in yellow legal pads full of pictogram code painstakingly drawn in black ink. He approached Tenzou with his hands in the pockets of his black slacks. They matched his dress shirt. Short, slight, and chronically exhausted looking, the proprietor of The Addiction Feed and sometimes-spy for Neji and the Vigilante Core always reminded Tenzou of a miniature Lurch with a serious skull-and-crossbone fetish.

"Ulquiorra," Tenzou said in greeting.

"Asashi." The thin lips barely moved, and the wide-set, blank, green-eyed stare made Tenzou wonder yet again what the guy was on. "Have something for me?"

"Not tonight. Here on personal business." Tenzou accepted his coffee from the girl with a forced smile. She didn't acknowledge it, perching on her stool and going back to reading without a word.

"Ah," Ulquiorra said, turning toward a back booth. "That one, then." He nodded to Sai, who sat hunched over the tabletop, scribbling.

"Good to see you," Tenzou said, topping his cup with a lid and heading for his appointment.

"No, it wasn't," Ulquiorra contradicted without venom, returning to his computer station. 

Tenzou snorted, silently hoped Neji sent the private investigator work soon to keep Ulquiorra occupied and out of trouble, and approached Sai. The boy didn't so much as look up until Tenzou sat down on the bench across from him. Sai wore a deep blue silk shirt with the mandarin collar he seemed to favor, and there were embroidered black flowers next to each of the hook-and-eye clasps. His hair was disheveled, as though not brushed for days, and his expression changed from focused to fearful to hopeful. Tenzou swallowed thickly.

"Hi, Sai." Tenzou sipped his coffee, wincing when it was not only hot, but strong enough to arm wrestle. The flavor was sharp on his tongue, rich and smoky.

"Hello." Sai put down his pen and turned the sketchbook so Tenzou could see. On the piece of paper, Tenzou sat in this very booth, holding a cup and looking somber. Tenzou wore different clothing, but the likeness and prediction were eerie, and once again Tenzou thought about how much Jack would have liked this boy.

"That's... very good."

Sai didn't smile, exactly, but his eyes got wider, impossibly luminous. He picked up the pen and held it to his chest with two small fists. "You're hard to draw, and I like it."

"I am?" Tenzou couldn't help to ask.

Sai nodded, serious as a heart attack. "There's... you have a lot to you. Under the surface that's just skin and bone and function. What... makes you is complex, but very pretty." Sai's fists twisted tighter on the pen. "Handsome, I mean," he corrected quickly, gaze dropping to the table. "Handsome." 

"Thank you." Tenzou shifted on the bench and shrugged out of his coat. Seeing Sai in person was bizarre. On one hand, it felt like he knew more about this kid than anyone else; like they were old friends. On the other, Tenzou addressed a fragile, youthful stranger with a crush that could dwarf mountain ranges. 

But maybe it was unfair, calling what Sai exhibited a "crush." It undermined the risk Tenzou was fairly sure Sai was taking to tell Tenzou who he was, what he wanted. Tenzou knew a thing or two about risks, particularly of the emotionally vulnerable kind. It'd been years, but those memories were like breathing: the moment you were paying attention, it got harder to do, every piece of you zoned in on an action that was supposed to be involuntary, and you got terrified that at any second, the spell would break.

Tenzou sighed, trying to figure out where in the hell to begin, and he took a long slug of coffee. "Sai, we need to talk about what's been going on." 

"You said you weren't angry." Sai's eyes flicked all over Tenzou's face, and he clutched the pen so tightly Tenzou worried it would snap.

"I'm not angry with you," Tenzou replied, trying to keep his tone as gentle and calm as possible. 

Sai watched Tenzou narrowly. "Then why are you acting as though you're going to tell me to go away again?"

"I don't mean to." Tenzou mentally cursed this kid's ability to say the very thing that completely derailed Tenzou into reactionary tactics.

"So you don't want me to go away, then?"

"I-er, that's not... look." Tenzou leaned forward, and Sai mimicked the movement. "I called you in the middle of the night. I came out here to meet you. These aren't signs of someone who's trying to... to..."

"I know," Sai said, and he was close enough that Tenzou could smell mint on his breath. "But you lie to yourself by speaking out loud to others."

Tenzou gaped, caught himself, and closed his mouth. "That's... no I don't!"

"Yes, you do."

Unsure how it was, exactly, that conversations with Sai degenerated into childish arguments, Tenzou fought back the faint stirrings of irritation. "Don't start this ag--"

"You like me." Sai slammed the pen on the table and swept aside the sketchbook. He was frowning, nearly scowling, black brows meeting over his nose. He slid an arm toward Tenzou and touched Tenzou's bare wrist with a single fingertip. "I know you do. But you don't _like_ that you do."

"For a kid who can't tell if I'm angry, you have some very interesting theories as to the rest of my feelings."

"The good stuff is easy to read in you, even for me. It's why I want you." 

"Why... you... what?" Tenzou floundered, heart firmly lodged near his vocal chords. All the evidence of the obvious aside, it was still a small miracle to hear the sentiment spoken out loud as easily as leaves rustling in a summer breeze.

"It's the bad that's a mess." Sai sighed, almost indignant, and Tenzou wanted to laugh.

"All right." Tenzou steadied himself. "Let me start by telling you a little about me, okay, that way I--"

"Real things?" Sai asked, suspicious. "Because I don't want to listen to the fake things."

Tenzou's lips worked without sound again, and he berated himself liberally for letting a man half his age and so green it made emeralds dull in comparison get to him. "Well, I don't want to say the... the fake things. So I'll try the, erm, real stuff."

"Okay," Sai agreed, evidently placated. He brightened, like somebody flicked a switch. "Can I hold your hand while you talk?"

"Ah, ehdn... you--" 

"I like touching you."

"Uhm--" 

"And I don't get to. Touch, I mean. Anybody, really. And don't like it, normally. Makes my skin feel slimy, but you..." Sai's head tilted in thought, and he stared at his own finger tracing a line from Tenzou's wrist to knuckles. "It's not like that with you."

Palm tingling, Tenzou turned his hand and clasped Sai's. The effect such a simple thing had on Sai was mesmerizing. Sai's lips parted in what had to be wonder, face ticking through clearly visible expressions: happiness, surprise, curiosity. Tenzou squeezed, marveling at how Sai's whole fist nearly fit in his. Tenzou was too warm after being too cold for too long, and he took a few deep breaths, thinking of his shop, his furniture, his resolve. 

"Sai, do you understand what interrupting is?" Tenzou counseled the kind of patience he once had used for Jack when completely lost during a scene.

"Interrupting, present participle of interrupt. Verb meaning to halt progress." 

"Very good," Tenzou said slowly and methodically. "When I speak, and you jump in to say something, that's what you're doing."

Sai bit his lip. "I know? I can't... I'm sorry."

"Forgiven," Tenzou said easily, and Sai blinked at him, evidently absorbing. "But I need you to stop giving in to that impulse and listen to me, starting right now."

Sai took a breath and straightened as though about to ask a question, but he kept quiet with obvious and, Tenzou had to admit, adorable effort. He nodded, and Tenzou rewarded him by covering their joined hands with Tenzou's free one.

A flush crept across Sai's cheekbones, and Tenzou choked on the protective instinct that flared fast and hot through his core. "During our second meeting," Tenzou chose the word carefully, "you asked me if I had a home. I didn't answer you, then, because you caught me off guard, but I think it's important that I do so now." Tenzou paused while Sai shifted in the seat, tucking legs to sit in a sort of kneel. The kid was listening with such enthralled attention it was equal parts exhilarating and embarrassing, but Tenzou continued, anyway.

"Growing up, my best friend was Jack Lawson. He lived in our neighborhood, and we went to school together. When we were sixteen, we started messing around. I'm not sure we knew back then what exactly was going on. We just understood that kissing each other felt a lot better than making out with our girlfriends." Tenzou paused. Telling this story usually hurt like hell, but this time it was a simmering sting floating below the surface. He wasn't sure what to make of that, and he hadn't exactly meant to go into so much detail, but it was too late to back down now. "We... were each other's firsts, and we stayed close until I left home at eighteen to join the military. I didn't want to go into the family business at the time, and I had this fascination with uniform and rank." Tenzou chuckled at himself. "Jack ended up going off to some school out West, and I thought that was the end of it. The letters eventually stopped, and well..." Tenzou shrugged. "I got to serve through two tours over six years, one of those in special ops, and then I got shot three times in an engagement that killed the rest of my men."

"Oh..." Sai uttered the single syllable, hand clenching in Tenzou's, and his lips turned white from the pressure to keep them shut. 

"It's all right," Tenzou reassured the kid. "I recovered, moved back home, and went to school for architecture. It's wasn't... quite the death sentence I thought it would be. One day, I was sitting in my parents' living room doing homework, and there was this knock at the door. I answered, and it was Jack. He looked..." Tenzou swallowed on the memory of Jack in a sweater and jeans, brown bangs in his dark eyes and bottle of vodka in a paper bag beneath one arm.  
 _  
"Hey."_

_"Jack? What... what're you...?"_

_"I heard you were home."_

_"How?"_

_"I pay attention."_

_"It's... it's good to... I mean..."_

_"Invite me in, asshole."_

_"Shit. Yeah. Come in. Sorry."_

_"Thanks."_

_"How've you... how are you?"_

_"Okay. Nice limp."_

_"Oh. Yeah. It'll... get better."_

_"Sexy."_

_"You think?"_

_"Tenzou..."_

_"What?"_

_"Hug me, already. Christ."_

_"Oh... okay."  
_  
"He looked good," Tenzou finished. "We... we got together. I graduated and took over my father's firm after Pop died. We got an apartment, built a house, made all these plans. We got married in our backyard a year after I took over the Asashi Firm while everything was still under construction. Small ceremony, just friends and family." Sai's hand moved in slow motion and one finger touched Tenzou's wedding band, as though feeling the talisman would make it real. Tenzou didn't like bringing all this shit out into the open, but if Sai was going to keep painting murals on his house, best the boy know who used to live there.

"But a year and a half ago, Jack was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. They aren't even sure where it started, it was so... Anyway, he died thirteen months ago, in bed at home, while I held his..." Tenzou looked down at their interlocking fingers. "Hand." 

Sai squirmed, silently but in obvious distress. Tenzou petted Sai's wrist, soothing words dying on his tongue when Sai leveraged higher on the bench. Intrigued, Tenzou didn't recant his request for quiet, and Sai bent gracefully from the waist. Sai hesitated, hovering in midair with a show of strength that Tenzou admired, and then, faintly, Sai kissed the very tip of Tenzou's thumb. 

Were there any doubts remaining that Tenzou had a certain fondness for the boy, the show of affection set fire to their funeral pyre. Tenzou raked fingers into Sai's hair, shocked by its coarse, thick texture. Sai went rigid, body rippling with rapid respiration, and Tenzou stopped, worried and slightly pained by the reaction. "Sit back," Tenzou softly commanded, and Sai's retreat would have made a mongoose envious. Sai's neck was flushed red, and he swayed like a reed in the wind. "Sai? Are you... It's not interrupting if you talk now."

"I didn't mean to!" Sai blurted, loudly enough that the girl behind the caged counter threw them an irked raised eyebrow. 

"Didn't mean to what?" Tenzou asked, alarmed but trying not to let it show in his voice.

"Make you... remind... have you... to..." Sai's struggle inspired a suffocating wave of sympathy, and Tenzou had to tell himself not to panic and grab the kid when Sai yanked away from him.

Sai clutched at both shoulders, arms crossed. "I don't like that Jack died," Sai said in a breathless blur to the table, gaze wide and wild. 

"You didn't have any--"

"I don't like that you hurt," Sai continued, barreling over Tenzou's phrasing as though Tenzou didn't speak at all. "I don't _like_. it. I think I made it worse. I didn't mean to. I don't want to remind you of him. I don't want to be him. But I want you to speak of me like you speak of Jack." The words started to run together. "I want to be me. And I want you to want _me._ " Sai let go of a muted cry of frustration that sent chills up Tenzou's spine. "But I want to bring him back, too. I want to save him for you. I've never... I don't... even with Mother and Father... I... I... I..."

Tenzou got to his feet, waved a hand through the air in a conciliatory gesture to anyone who might be distressed by the display, and he slid onto Sai's bench. Sai hiccoughed a squawk, retreating from Tenzou in a movement that shoved an invisible blade of icy steel through Tenzou's belly. 

Sai shook his head from side to side, not quite a negative. More like a manic sway of some sort. "I'm not good at this... not good... not good..."

Tenzou halted his advance, lamenting over what in the fuck to do with the hyperventilating, distraught boy. The situation had gone to shit too fast to be possible. He tried to remember anything he'd ever read about autism, couldn't think of a single goddamned line, swore he'd change that sooner rather than later, and fixated on Sai's pen. On impulse, he picked it up and held it out to Sai, who snatched it with both hands. Sai gasped, hugging the inkpen like some children held teddy bears.

"That's it," Tenzou murmured, low and careful. "Breathe for me, Sai." He reached toward Sai's shoulder, and Sai twisted.

"Don't touch me, yet," Sai ordered, head bowed.

"Okay," Tenzou agreed quickly, palms up in temporary defeat. "Only what you want, Sai, I promise."

Sai unwound with a gushing exhale, nodding weakly. Tenzou made fists to keep himself from wrapping the boy in an embrace, and he whirled and almost punched Ulquiorra in the face, startled by a subtle noise and a sense of intrusion. Ulquiorra glared at him, nonplussed, and slid a glass of water to the center of the table. The skulls hanging from Ulquiorra's earlobes and necklace tinkled.

"Thank you," Tenzou muttered. Ulquiorra snorted, pivoted, and walked away. Tenzou rotated in time to see Sai's hands drop from in front of his chest to his lap, pen still in his grip.

"When I was little, Danzou enrolled me in a martial arts school," Sai whispered, practically doubled in half. Tenzou had to lean to hear him, pulse pounding, and Tenzou was completely confused as to where _this_ bit of confession was going.

"Having people around made me feel like I was going more insane than I felt most of the time." Sai shivered. "And anyone touching me made me sick. I used to... used to scream until I threw up."

Tenzou was slightly ill just hearing about it. "Danzou thought marital arts would... help?"

"He told me it would make me listen, force me to pay attention to the people around me, get me used to unexpected impact, and I'd learn to defend myself."

Tenzou couldn't exactly fault the logic, but it seemed a cruel solution, nonetheless. "How old were you?"

"Four and a half."

_"Four?"_

"And six months. I... I ran away or hid at first, but Danzou and Sensei... insisted." Sai sat up, pale and appearing far older than his years. "I learned how to separate myself from sensation. I learned how to talk. To explain and use words. I had to. It was learn or... die?"

"I see," Tenzou said in what he hoped was a neutral tone. 

"I kept going even after they took me out of school to do only art. I liked to practice. I was good."

"You are," Tenzou agreed. "I experienced that first hand."

Sai finally looked at Tenzou. "It... helped. I changed dojos a few years ago. I see Gai-sensei, now. Privately. No other people."

"I know Gai." Tenzou's relief that Sai was in caring hands when training knew no bounds. Gai was made for Sai's sort of challenge and would handle Sai with respect and tenderness.

"Yes," Sai said simply. He licked his lips and glanced at Tenzou's arm resting on the back of the bench. "You can touch me, now, if you still want to."

"I do," Tenzou said, inching closer but freezing when Sai's hand shot out to catch Tenzou's wrist in an unforgiving grip. 

"But you have to tell me how," Sai said, chest rising and falling faster.

Rolling with the fast and unpredictable metaphoric punches, Tenzou steadied himself. He smiled, deliberately, and thought he'd be able to handle the request to explain actions before doing them. He had _some_ practice with that, after all. Just here and there. "I can do that, Sai. I'd like to put an arm around you, hug you, and let go to hold your hand while we keep talking."

Sai considered the list with a pensive expression. "Okay," Sai agreed, firmly. He uncoiled from against the wall, turning to one side, and watched Tenzou like a cat spying a mouse.

"Thank you," Tenzou said absently, bracing himself. He did as he'd warned, looping his left arm across Sai's narrow shoulders. The boy was so much smaller than Tenzou, seemingly fragile despite the musculature and definition Tenzou could feel beneath the silk. Sai tensed, breath catching, and Tenzou gently tugged Sai against him. Sai smelled like detergent and, fainter, of paint thinner. Tenzou clasped Sai's arm briefly, began to let go, but at an unexpected and unforeseen apex, Sai wavered, and the boy flung about Tenzou with both arms. Tenzou grunted with the impact.

"Oh," Sai said, almost a whimper, but a relieved one. He rested his cheek against Tenzou's chest on an awkward angle, and Tenzou dared to increase the pressure of the hold. Sai slumped, and Tenzou had to catch him, else he go face first into Tenzou's lap. "It's different. I thought... but it's... _oh_."

Tenzou was completely speechless, doe-eyed blind in the headlights of a bullet train, and he stared dumbstruck at his armful of Sai. His heart hammered so hard it threatened to bruise his sternum. Sai's earnest abandon physically hurt Tenzou; his eyes burned, his head throbbed, and his muscles ached like they'd held a strain for years tipping to decades. Delicately, Tenzou brushed a palm over Sai's hair, and Sai wilted with a soft sound that was alarming and alluring in equal measure. He tried to call the boiling seas of caged desire and the tornado of new information to order, but for long minutes, there was nothing to be done but hold, caress, and digest. 

The embrace that had truly only held one other soul in sanctuary now encircled a creature as fragile as he was courageous, as lost as he was certain, and as hungry as he was bold. Running for the door like the building was on fire probably wasn't an option any longer, but Tenzou needed a net under this ever-elongating tightrope, and the only way to do that was with mutual understanding. 

Encouraging Sai to let go and sit up was a slow task, but Sai eventually unfurled. Tenzou handed Sai the glass of water, which Sai drank, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve when finished. He faced Tenzou, sitting sideways on the bench, and snatched Tenzou's hand with both of his. Sai's gaze was clear and direct. 

"Better?" Tenzou asked. 

"Yes." 

"Good." Tenzou rubbed at the scruff of his beard. "Sai, I..." Tenzou floundered and gave an exasperated sigh. "Nothing that happened with Jack -- nothing you _did_ , had anything to do with Jack or with my grief. I was, well, am, I guess, wallowing just fine on my own."

"Why?" Sai interjected.

"Which means," Tenzou continued, throwing Sai a significant look that made Sai press his lips together. "That I'm in no shape for a relationship with anyone." Sai muffled a sound of clear protest, gripping Tenzou's hand too tightly for comfort. "Especially someone who's not familiar with how these things can go, what can happen. I'd just end up hurting..." Tenzou stopped. Sai was wriggling closer, obviously about to burst in his efforts to hold the peace. "All right," Tenzou conceded, wearily. "Go ahead."

"I _want_ to hurt," Sai said.

"You don't know what you're saying, Sai. No one wants--"

"Yes. I. Do." Sai said each word distinctly, snarled when Tenzou attempted to reply, and slapped a hand over Tenzou's mouth. They sat in mutual shock for a few seconds, Tenzou getting lost and amused at the way Sai stared at his appendage like he wasn't sure what the hell it was doing. 

Tenzou reached to undo Sai's clamp, hanging on to the offending hand to show no harm had been done. "I'm listening, Sai."

"I am, too. And you were lying again."

Tenzou rumbled a sound he hoped didn't come across as too irritated. "Oh?"

"Sometimes you're with me, right here," Sai jerked on Tenzou's arm for emphasis. "And it's beautiful. Like when you told me what you hated about my painting. Or like when you caught me following you and we fought on the street. Like when you spoke of Jack and like when you just hugged me. That's you. And I love it." Sai stopped, eyes still frank and open, like he'd never been wounded or belittled or afraid for a single day of his life. 

Tenzou knew better, and though he was faintly dizzy from exhaustion and caffeine overload, and though he was sweating enough to soak his shirt's armpits, he nodded. "Go on."

Sai worked for the words, and Tenzou waited through the false starts and halting stops. "Your voice changes when you lie. You get sadder. I can tell, and it's always when you talk about retreat. You were... honest when you told me to get away from you. But you were lying when you said you weren't the right shape for me. I'm not stupid. You saying you're not worthy is like telling me I am dumb. I don't like that. I took risks for you that I've never taken for anybody because when you're honest, you're different than anyone else, and I want that."

"How?" Tenzou interjected, the syllable a rasp from a very dry throat.

"What?" Sai asked, so tense he practically vibrated.

"Tell me more about how you envision this going, Sai. More about what it is, exactly, that you think you want."

In Tenzou's experience, most people, when faced with the overwhelming question of what they wanted out of life, a relationship, or even a single scene, floundered. Sometimes they grew almost angry, usually, Tenzou suspected, because they thought there was something inherently wrong with dictating their likes and dislikes. People feared judgment and being laughed at, and were terrified of a trap into which they could fall, be conned into confession, and then persecuted for their own stupidity for not seeing the trick. 

Tenzou should know, after all. It had taken ages for Jack to drag the truth from Tenzou's guts, to get Tenzou to admit not only to liking the ideas Jack had for the bedroom or anywhere else they could build a rig, but to enjoying them. Getting off on them. _Wanting_ them. 

Sai's observations about Tenzou's honesty or lack thereof could almost echo the ones Jack had so many years ago. The parallels were creepy as fuck, to put it bluntly, and well worthy of an order to cease and desist for sanity's sake. Tenzou had come here tonight, he thought, to explain himself, to tell Sai that yes, Tenzou was interested and yes, he most certainly wanted, but that didn't make being boyfriends a good idea. Tenzou had just come to grips with his fears on trying again with someone new six hours ago, for Chrissakes. He needed time. 

So, he'd thought to tell Sai they could start as friends, get to know one another, and when Sai added some years to catch up to Tenzou's experiences, then maybe something more would be possible. Tenzou could explain his sadistic tendencies later, when it was more appropriate and after he'd come to terms with wanting such things with someone other than Jack. It wasn't denial; it was _smart_. It was mature and reasonable. He knew without a doubt that he was fascinated and smitten and even awe-struck, and no small wonder.

But when Tenzou asked Sai -- the autistic artist boy who didn't know any better than to fall for the fucked-up authority figure -- what Sai wanted, and Sai didn't fumble or falter, but instantly relaxed instead, as though Tenzou had spoken the magic password that unlocked tranquility, the tiny voice in the rear of Tenzou's mind that he liked to ignore realized with unshakable resolve and no small amount of panic that Tenzou was also... _doomed._

"I want to see you more," Sai began with feverish enthusiasm. "I want to touch you. I've never had anyone to touch, and I like it. Just holding your hand is amazing, and thinking about holding you arouses me. Gets me hard." Sai said this like Tenzou might need more clarification on what "arouse" actually meant. Tenzou refrained from saying that he, nor any part of him, needed the help at the moment, thanks.

"I want to go out places with you. I've never done that with someone I liked or wanted to touch. I want to try making out, mutual masturbation, blow jobs, rimming, and anal sex." Sai's eyes rolled heavenward, dreamy in their consideration. "In that order, I think. I want..." Sai's breath shook, and he licked his lips while staring at Tenzou's groin. "I want to see you come, and I want you to do the same to me. I want to draw you nude and have the lines and proportions be right. And..." Sai straightened, and Tenzou didn't think there was any way to prepare for whatever in the hell came next.

"You have experience with BDSM, and I want to benefit from it. Not just for my art, though that is a reason, and not just to prove Danzou wrong about how being intimate or vulnerable will be bad for me or the work." Tenzou choked on irrational rage, but Sai didn't seem to notice.

"I want it because it might be something that would shut me down for long enough to feel. _Really_ feel. Not just add up things I've read or heard about in an equation and recite what I get. You already make me feel more than anyone else I've met, which is actually a fair number with all my shows. I talk to people. I know some of them. You're special. I trust you. That's important in the Scene, I know that. I've read everything I can about it, but doing it..." Sai shuddered and smiled, and it was one of the most incredible things Tenzou had ever witnessed. "I think it would be better with someone I want to touch, and with someone who knows a lot. I think it'd take edgier things to get me undone, and I'd like you to be my Dominant. Though, I admit, if you don't want that part because I'm not your preferred submissive type, then I want you to introduce me to someone who can fulfill those needs while we keep experimenting with lovemaking. Someone _you_ trust, because my sensory panics are getting worse, and I think I need something soon, or it'll become too difficult to be around people." Sai blew a loud breath, settled on his heels, and blinked at Tenzou, head cocking with the birdlike quirk.

Tenzou sat stock still with jaw slack and dick half-hard and tried to find the ability to speak after being hit in the head repeatedly with a ten-ton crowbar of unabashed candor. It took a little while to gather wit and whim, and Sai was good enough to wait. 

"So you've... you've thought about this, have you?" Tenzou finally managed to ask, in a breathy wheeze.

"Yes," Sai said, the line between his eyebrows forming with a small frown. "Pursuing you without knowing my cause wouldn't make any sense."

"Right, right," Tenzou agreed. He laughed, suddenly, helplessly, and with real mirth, and the image of Kakashi rolling around on the ground cackling the fool's heart out didn't help. 

"What's funny?" Sai asked, smiling.

"Nothing," Tenzou said, waving and chortling.

"Something!"

"I'm sorry," Tenzou rubbed his eyes. "Oh, God, it's just that usually people aren't so forthright, and it's... refreshing. Terrifying, but refreshing."

"Oh." Sai pursed his lips. "And it's scary because it's a lot. But... you asked me what I wanted, and that's..."

"I did," Tenzou soothed, squeezing both of Sai's hands. "You did nothing wrong. I'm just... I'm going to need some time to think about all that."

"How much time?" Sai asked the question like there was a taxi arriving in three minutes and missing it would be rather inconvenient. "I thought you knew all this. You came here tonight."

"I did, yes, and--"

"I painted for you."

"I realize--"

"So how could you not expect me to want--"

"Sai," Tenzou barked. Sai shut his mouth and took no apparent offense. "I did suspect, I do understand, but I came here tonight to tell you we have to proceed slowly." 

"Slowly?" Sai echoed, loudly. 

"Sai," Tenzou warned. 

"But it's been weeks already! I don't want--"

"Enough!" Tenzou called, and he grew aware of how many sets of eyes were watching with rapt amusement. He cursed under his breath and drew closer, yanking Sai nearer and practically hissing in the kid's face. "We go at my pace and as I say because we're dealing with emotions and complex situations that you don't understand, have no experience with, and I refuse to rush through anything and hurt you unintentionally."

"Oh," Sai whispered. "Okay."

"Oh-okay?" Tenzou verbally tripped over Sai's easy acceptance.

"Yes." Sai swallowed audibly, blushing beneath the red and yellow lights overhead. "You make sense, and..."

"And?"

"And you being honest and holding me like this is turning me on. I think I like force." The latter was said with a childlike innocence that made Tenzou want to beat his head against the table until he saw stars.

Releasing Sai, Tenzou squared his shoulders. He was too tired to continue this conversation much longer. He was numb with overload, resignation, and weary affection. It was getting light outside, Tenzou needed space and soon, but integrity would not allow him to leave Sai without addressing some of his concerns. Tenzou just _couldn't_. "First, some ground rules. You listen without interrupting and memorize what I'm about to say." Sai sat upright in rapt attention, hands folding around the pen on top of the sketch of Tenzou. 

"Good." Tenzou thought fast. "One: we go at the pace I set, no arguments. Two: you will see no one for Scene-related anything without my permission. Three: you will answer any questions I have and ask any that you have unless being directed to listen, only. Four: should you get into any trouble or need help or aid, you will now get in touch with me. And five: no more drawing on my property or throwing bricks through windows. If you need to talk, you are to call me on my cell phone. But _not_ at all hours of the day or night unless it's an emergency. Six a.m. until eleven p.m. should suffice." Tenzou stopped, grunted, and hoped to anything that was fucking observing this bit of insanity that the rules covered a decent majority of issues. "Understood?" he asked, and Sai nodded, solemn despite rosy cheeks. 

"Good." Tenzou grabbed his coffee, took a swig even though it was cold. The overwhelming need to act gripped him again, and his hand nearly crushed the paper cup. "You said you think you need to explore Scene sooner rather than later, yes?" Another sincere nod. "And you've read plenty." One more affirmative. "But I assume you've not experienced anything? Or seen anything done in person?" The answer this time was a negative.

"Well," Tenzou said, hoping he wouldn't regret all this later. Or even immediately after he spoke. "I think that gives me a starting point at least." He took several gulps of caffeine, sat down the cup, and had to gulp the lump rising in his throat. "While you were painting that mural for Neji in the middle of the night at Bliss, were you ever curious about what went on at Break?" Slowly, Sai nodded and an entirely different sort of smile, devious and delicious and definitely enough to make Tenzou's veins burble in the sweet sort of anticipation, cracked the cupid lips to show the hint of white teeth.

~*~


	7. When the Dam Breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenzou and Sai test their limits in Club Break.

Tenzou shoved open the side door of the Saint Ann Street McDonald's in Shadgrove and started to cross the parking lot to his Hummer. He paused midway, legs shaky and knees weak. He cocked his head, fingers clenching the plastic cup of ice water just a little tighter, and he waited to see if his guts were going to ease. The night was damp, cool without being cold, and a light drizzle fell, wetting the shoulders of Tenzou's black trench coat. Cars passed by on the roads on all four sides of the fast food restaurant, and the traffic was heavy for a Sunday night. Headlights shone, distantly a siren coming from the direction of Saint Ann's hospital wailed, and Tenzou breathed a sigh of relief when his intestines stopped twisting like a rope bridge over a canyon. 

Continuing to the H3's door, Tenzou unlocked it and climbed inside. He finished the water and rested, knowing he had to get moving or he'd be late. He was due to pick up Sai from the Addiction Feed in five minutes and take the kid to Club Break, and his body evidently thought that was tantamount to going to war. That was something nobody really talked about: the physical reactions to fear and combat and training. Your bladder shrank, your bowels turned to water, your stomach heaved bile-flavored breakfast, and soldiers simply had to deal with those reactions while carrying on with the exercise or maneuver or engagement. Tenzou knew how to breathe through it, knew better than to get overexcited or anxious and thus make it worse, but the severity of tonight's little episode was... unexpected. So far he'd made two pit stops, one to a gas station for Pepto and the second to this McDonald's where he'd spent the last ten minutes melting porcelain. Thank God for the enlightening bit of graffiti on the joys of oral sex or Tenzou would have been positively bored.

Chuckling at himself because if he didn't laugh he'd give in to pure hysteria, Tenzou tipped a piece of ice into his mouth and dropped the cup into the console in the truck's floorboard. His cheek went numb as he pulled into the flow of traffic. Sai didn't have a cell phone, so Tenzou tapped through menus on his iPhone and dialed the café. 

"Addiction Feed," said a dull male voice after the fourth ring.

"Ulquiorra?" Tenzou asked.

"What?"

"It's Asashi Tenzou. Do me a favor."

"Why?"

Tenzou snorted, teeth clenched. "Because I'm asking nicely."

"What?" 

Ulquiorra sounded bored and resigned to fate. The epitome of communicative and cordial, this one. Ulquiorra and Gaara should get together and have a non-chat. It'd be hilarious to watch. "About a week ago, I was in there with a brunet kid. Young, slender, about five foot--"

"Yes. And?"

"Is he there?"

"Yes."

"Good. Tell him I'll be ten minutes late."

"Mm." Ulquiorra hung up, and Tenzou had to hope the man would be good for the message. Tenzou and Sai had spoken every day since they'd met up in the middle of the night and Tenzou had offered to... well. Tenzou still wasn't sure. Take Sai under his wing? Show Sai some ropes without tying any of the knots? Guard and be friends with Sai until someone better came along and struck Sai's fancy? 

Tenzou reached for the Pepto in the passenger seat. Who was he kidding? He wanted the kid. Wanted to fuck him, hold him, hurt him, tuck him in to bed at night. Tenzou'd thought long and gotten hard over the last few days on what he would allow himself to do and what he wouldn't. He'd drawn lines, erased them, restructured priorities, watched them crumble, created limits, wondered if they were sane...

The medicine was thick on his tongue and chalky in his throat, and Tenzou recapped the bottle, leaned sideways, and stored it in the glove compartment. He retrieved a pack of gum, and popped two caplets into his mouth. He barely tasted the mint and wove through the streets repeating mantras to himself.  
 _  
I will only do what's best for him. I will hold the line. I will show and not take. I will only do what's best for him...  
_  
There was a snarky, though irritatingly calm, voice that sounded way too much like Kakashi whispering that Tenzou was kind of cute when being so fucking delusional. One half of him agreed, understood that he had no business taking the kid to Break. He had no business taking anyone anywhere in the state he was in, which was frayed, unraveled, and sort of spontaneously schizophrenic. Picking up Sai, seeing him, going through with the carefully laid out and ambitious plan for the evening was a suicide mission that would self-destruct in his face. Tenzou _knew_ this.

And yet he steered his truck toward the café with dogged determination. Because the other half of him argued, in a terribly reasonable fashion, that some sort of interaction had to happen. He'd made promises to the boy that he had to keep. Tenzou was honor-bound to protect and serve, to teach and Master, and at least if Tenzou carried through with the plan, he'd have a chance at showing Sai that yes, Tenzou cared, but there were other people out there who could do for the kid what Sai needed without Tenzou's battleship of baggage. Tenzou accepted that physical contact was likely inevitable, could stomach that because, well, it wasn't like Tenzou could do much with a dick that only stayed hard for about five minutes max without any sort of orgasmic point. Tenzou could commit himself to going slow, could limit the sex to doing only for Sai, could show Sai Scene and other options, and maybe, just maybe, Tenzou could scrape out of this situation with himself in one piece and Sai safely and eventually in the arms of a saner, better man. 

And it didn't matter that the idea of Sai with someone else made his insides burn, his asshole spasm, and his gorge rise. Nerves. That was just nerves.

Tenzou turned into the Addiction Feed parking lot, and a slim figure wrapped in a deep blue Japanese Happi coat got up from a bench next to the front door. At the very sight of Sai, Tenzou wanted to moan and to cry and to beg somebody for mercy. The boy was so graceful, walking to Tenzou's truck. Sai was resolute, eyes wide, shoulders relaxed, pale skin practically lit from within. Sai tried to open the passenger door, but it was locked, and Tenzou's fingers shook as he hit the button. 

All week, he'd been calm on the phone. He'd listened to Sai speak of paintings, daily routine, childhood, lonely Christmases, and about how Sai had always wanted a kitten. Tenzou had answered Sai's questions about building Break, about his woodworking business, and, bewildered, he'd given Sai his suit measurements when Sai had demanded them. Sai had confessed to liking collars, cinnamon ice cream, and had asked for dozens of details about fisting before saying he wasn't sure he liked the idea after all while Tenzou tried not to hyperventilate. Tenzou had steered Sai into making arrangements to meet up, being careful to choose a night when he knew Kakashi was not going to be at the club. Tenzou'd explained Break's dress code or lack thereof when Sai had lamented over what to wear. Sai had backed Tenzou into a corner, and Tenzou had snapped at Sai that no, he would not dictate Sai's wardrobe, and the answer to why was _because he said so, dammit._

Waterboarding would never have made Tenzou confess that the very idea of having command of such small, intimate details had Tenzou hard and doubled over in want. Being so involved crossed lines that Tenzou was desperate to hold.

The reasoning behind those boundaries, however, completely escaped Tenzou when Sai climbed into the H3. He wore snug silken pants, black calf-high boots, and the coat covered whatever he wore over his upper half. His hair was clean, messy again in artful arrangement. He smelled sweet, like chocolate, and he smiled at Tenzou without a hint of artifice. 

Tenzou's heart pounded, and an image of a birch tree wrapped in ice leapt to Tenzou's mind. Branches crackled, icicles fell to stab the earth, and the bark began to split. For a second, Tenzou couldn't remember anything: how to breathe, why they were there, where they were going, how they'd met, if there'd been a point when Sai had not been in Tenzou's life. He couldn't even make his throat work in a swallow.

Sai frowned. "You look sick."

Tenzou sucked wind in a wheeze. "Nice to see you, too."

"Why do you look sick?" Sai asked this time instead of stating.

"I'm fine."

"You're pale."

"It's the light."

"Your lips have no color."

"It's normal."

"It isn't. Normal is pink. You seem--"

"Sai, I'm all right!" Tenzou bellowed.

"You're lying," Sai answered, calmly with a deepening frown.

Tenzou gaped at the kid. He didn't know if he wanted to kiss Sai or shake the boy until the pretty, thin neck threatened to snap. "I ate something that disagreed with me."

Sai's frown vanished. "Oh. Do you need medicine?"

"I've taken some."

"Oh." Sai's eyes searched the interior of the truck with an inward, preoccupied gaze. "You don't have to take me to the club. We could go to your home, where you could rest and be comfortable, and I could experience what I want with just you."

"Gee, why didn't I think of that?" Tenzou muttered, forehead on the steering wheel.

"...I don't know?" Sai replied.

Tenzou sighed, sat up, and put the truck into gear. "We're going to the club, Sai."

"I don't like you sick." Sai's tone was stubborn, and he clasped Tenzou's wrist.

"I'll pass that along to my immune system. Buckle up." Tenzou gently shook off Sai's hold.

Sai dutifully put on his seatbelt. "I don't think the mind-to-blood cell communication works like that, and I don't understand why we're going to the club if you're ill when we could accomplish--"

"Sai," Tenzou barked in his best military commander voice, and Sai didn't flinch but did sit up straighter in the seat, staring at Tenzou with big, wide eyes. "State the rules."

"We go at your pace. I only see you for Scene action or information. I will answer and ask questions unless you direct me to be quiet. I go to you for help. I can't draw on your house or break any more windows. I am to call you on your cell phone between six a.m. and eleven p.m. unless there is an emergency." Sai rattled off the list like an elementary school kid might recite an assigned poem; just words, no meaning. His frown shouldn't have been so adorable, and Tenzou tried to ignore it, pulling out of the parking lot.

"Now tell me what we've talked about in regards to visiting Break."

"Why?"

"Because I asked you to."

"Have you forgotten?" Sai sounded hopeful.

"No, Sai," Tenzou said dryly. "I have this dumb idea that if you repeat it often enough, it'll sink in." 

"Sink into what?"

Tenzou had learned over the hours of chatting that Sai tended to act more literal and emotionally stunted than he was when doing something he didn't like. Tenzou shot Sai an unhappy look, and Sai flopped back into the seat, arms folded across his chest.

"Our engagement tonight at Break is meant to show me a broader view of Scene than just the two of us could provide or know, and it follows rule one as it's part of the pace you've set, but I still think it breaks rule two because it means going somewhere else for information. I only want to talk to you. I only care what _you_ think because I only want to play with you or with someone _you_ choose. I don't want that power because I'm not qualified, and--"

"Thank you, Sai," Tenzou interjected wearily. 

"Besides," Sai continued, picking at a seam in his coat. "The entire plan should change if you are compromised. All the books say not to do things when--"

"Sai, that's enough." The birch tree in Tenzou's crazy headspace swayed and crunched in a gusty breeze. Sai didn't answer, and after a few minutes, guilt and duty got the better of Tenzou's tongue. "You're right, Sai. One shouldn't play if one is emotionally or physically unstable. That's why we're not doing anything in the club, tonight."

Sai appeared to mull that over. "So if we were somewhere other than the club, there would be a chance of you recuperating and us playing or doing something?"

Tenzou ground his teeth. "My pace, Sai. Mine." 

Sai huffed. 

"Fine," Tenzou said. "Consider it an order, then."

The way Sai brightened at those words did not bode well for Tenzou's tentative boundaries. "Order?" Sai asked, interested.

"Sure," Tenzou replied, trying to sound casual. "We will go to the club, you will observe people playing, you will ask any questions of me or other members, you will try things if the mood strikes you, and you and I will not do anything in the club." Tenzou hoped to God that was specific enough. Leaving Sai loopholes was not a wise idea.

"That's what you want?" Sai asked, voice so soft Tenzou almost didn't hear him.

"Yes, Sai. That's what I want." The words rang hollow in Tenzou's own ears, and his insides cramped. 

"You're lying, again, but okay." Sai clasped his hands in his lap and stared out the window.

Tenzou didn't care if he'd won the pyrrhic victory by fighting. Sai had agreed, and Tenzou concentrated on driving and breathing. By the time they reached the road that wound up the side of a plateau heading toward the cathedral on top, the drizzle had stopped and the stars bright enough to overcome light pollution were appearing as the clouds rolled out to sea. Sai didn't say another word while Tenzou navigated the switchback curves, but he did twist in his seat to get a better look at the view. All of Monoshizukanohi sprawled beyond and below them, the city's spires swirled in fog and mist. Tenzou slowed down when the road leveled so Sai could see, and he smiled at Sai's terribly quiet sigh.

On Sundays, the above-ground dance club Bliss was closed and below-ground BDSM club Break was open. Most people would take the Tomb entrance into the underground passageway leading to Break, but Tenzou didn't want to deal with that nonsense. He parked in the VIP lot near Bliss' front door and killed the engine. "Ready?" he asked his mute passenger.

Sai merely nodded and opened his door. Tenzou was worried, but comforted somewhat when Sai's swift and determined gait matched his as they crossed the parking lot and ascended wide, concrete steps. Tenzou dug in the pocket of his black pants for the electronic passkey that would undo the locks and let them inside. His slacks were tailored but plain, the only embellishment a leather-esque sheen to the nap. Over the pants, Tenzou wore a dark grey, heavy t-shirt with a v-neck. Nothing fancy, just as he preferred it. Let Neji and Naruto have their vinyl and leather outfits. Things cost a fortune and didn't suit Tenzou. 

Tenzou withdrew the passkey and paused. He didn't keep it on his regular keychain any longer, and when he'd snatched the thing out of the kitchen's junk drawer earlier tonight, he'd not thought anything of it. Now, though, he stared at the silver rectangle that was a tiny reproduction of a framed painting depicting a forest and lake. A birch forest, to be exact, and Tenzou knew the trees in the original were covered in ice. Tenzou couldn't remember the artist's name, only that it had been one of Jack's favorites.

"What's that?" Sai asked, coming closer.

"The key." Tenzou's voice was rough. 

Sai studied Tenzou's palm. "That's Nin Yi's, 'Why Do You Come To Me,'" he pronounced. "Though sometimes the title's interpreted, 'Why Do You Kneel To Me.'"

"Yes. Yes it is." Tenzou looked at Sai, met the serious gaze, and Sai said nothing more. Tenzou swiped the passkey over the sensor, entered a ten-digit code, and the massive gothic doors began to swing open on their automated hinges. Tenzou was numb about the lips, and his brain was full of fog. He walked into the building, barely glancing at Sai's mural high up on the wall. He secured the outer doors, waved his key over two more sensor panels, and then they were descending a stone staircase lit by dim sconces.

"We can check our coats, here," Tenzou said, gesturing to the counter tucked into a nook near one of the doorways into the club. The Catacombs, as the hallways around the club were called, were mostly empty tonight. Tenzou heard music, a low steady beat, and the few patrons he did see were outfitted in the usual amount of leather, vinyl, chain, and lace. One man walked by in nothing but a black leather thong, and another came out of the club heading for the restrooms in absolutely nothing at all. Sai watched the second man's progression with interest, and he shrugged out of his Happi coat.

"Very good, sir!" said Rose, the sweet woman who usually occupied the check counter. She took Sai's jacket, and beneath it Sai wore nothing but the silk pants and a single black armband around his left bicep. Though Sai was slim and slight, his dense, well-defined musculature shifted and slid beneath pale, white-almond skin. When he bent his arm, the band constricted and visible veins plumped in Sai's forearms and hands. He was smooth save for the shadows of his underarms and a short dusting of black hair that started below his navel. Tenzou's palms itched, and he dug fingernails into them. He'd seen the likeness in a painting, and he'd felt Sai through clothing, but the flesh and bone visual left his mouth dry.

Rose glanced at Tenzou and winked, and Tenzou handed over his duster, gulping down desire and despair. "Thank you," Tenzou said, taking their checked item stubs. 

"You're welcome. Enjoy your night, sirs."

"You look nice," Sai said to Tenzou, eying Tenzou with such extreme focus that he broke into a sweat.

"Thank you," Tenzou replied politely, leading them into Break proper. "So do you." 

"You mean it." Sai brought both hands up to his heart, one fist resting on the other over his breastbone. Sai smiled at the floor, and Tenzou's knees went watery. He halted and almost told Sai he had to go, and if Sai needed him, he'd be hiding in the bathroom wishing he did drugs. 

"I..." Tenzou began, and Sai's head snapped up to stare up at him.

"You?" Sai asked.

"Tenzou?" called an incredulous and familiar voice. Tenzou tore himself away from Sai to watch Kiba saunter over to them. Kiba's jeans were slung low on his hips, and he had on a leather shoulder piece studded with rivets that covered his upper back. The triskelion dragon tattoo covering Kiba's chest seemed to swirl beneath the overhead red and blue lights, and Tenzou breathed through a spell of dizziness.

"Kiba," Tenzou replied. "Good to see you."

"The fuck ya doin' here?" Kiba asked, laughing. Kiba grabbed Tenzou's hand and yanked Tenzou into a fierce embrace, slapping him on the shoulder. 

"I think my name's still on the deed," Tenzou answered.

"Well, shit, sure, but ya ain't been here in... Oh, hang the fuck on. Who's this?" Kiba grinned a toothy, pointy grin at Sai, who smiled back without hesitation.

"Kiba, meet Sai."

"Nice to meet you," Sai said. Loudly. And he glanced at Tenzou meaningfully, as though checking to see if Tenzou noted the progress on tonight's orders. Tenzou winced.

"Yours?" Kiba asked Tenzou without answering Sai directly.

"No," Tenzou said.

"Yes," Sai said at the same time.

"Under protection," Tenzou clarified.

Kiba cocked a brow at Tenzou. "Sub?"

"Just looking for now," Tenzou tried, but Sai drowned him out.

"Yes, I am interested in being a submissive." Sai stepped close enough to Kiba that Kiba stumbled backward a pace, blinking down at Sai with a bemused expression. "I want to be his submissive, but he says I must see how others behave in the Lifestyle first. Are you a Dom?"

"Ah..." Kiba smiled weakly, obviously amused to all hell. Tenzou inwardly groaned. "I'm more anythin' ya need me t'be, babe."

Sai's grin shown like a laser beam. "Good. Can you take me to one of those areas under the spotlights, tie me to something sturdy, and use implements I choose to hit my ass and thighs, then, please? I suspect I'll need the experience before he'll relent and do it himself." 

There was no doubt of the "he" to whom Sai referred, and Tenzou ran a hand over his face while Kiba burst into genuine laughter. Sai glanced at Tenzou. "Why do people keep laughing at me when I say what I want?" he asked, frowning.

"Because ya say it so goddamned straight, sweetheart," Kiba said. "It's a rare an' pretty sort 'a thing."

"Oh," Sai said, still frowning. "Well, then, are you interested?"

Kiba looked Sai up and down appraisingly. "Oh, I'm interested, a'right, but ya see that redhead over there in the DJ booth?" Kiba turned to one side and pointed at Gaara, who was engrossed in his control panel.

"Yes," Sai said.

"He's mine an' I'm his, an' I got ta ask him if I wanna get my hands dirty. An' yer fuckin' gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but I had plans fer my boyfriend tonight." Kiba smiled kindly at Sai.

"Okay." Sai nodded. "Then is there someone else you'd recommend?" Sai was practically yelling again, but Kiba wasn't deterred. 

"Ah, well, I think Naru's 'round here somewhere with that brat 'a his." Kiba craned his neck, searching, and Tenzou surveyed the room. There was a seating area along the rear of the club, a bar that served non-alcoholic drinks and food on the opposite wall from where Tenzou stood, and there were five play areas and one main stage with a catwalk that jutted out into the middle of the club. Kimimaro, clad only in velvet strips and his usual ton of metal jewelry, was on the main stage with two other club-paid submissives. They were talking to members, setting up for their show. 

If Kimimaro was working tonight, that meant Itachi and Haku were close by, and sure enough, Tenzou spotted the elder Uchiha sitting on a couch in the back of the room, next to the padded restraint wall. Haku was kneeling next to Itachi's knee, and sitting with Itachi was a man Tenzou didn't recognize, but who could have been Itachi and Sasuke's long-lost brother. 

"Think they're over on the far side 'a the stage," Kiba said, starting to head in that direction.

Sai followed, so Tenzou went, too. "Naruto and Sasuke are playing on a night when Itachi and his crew are here?" Tenzou asked.

Kiba shrugged. "Don't ask me. I don't get involved in their fucked up politics. Fer all I know, they like watchin' each other do their thing." 

From what he'd heard from Kakashi, Tenzou didn't think so, but he stayed quiet on the subject while they rounded the catwalk and headed toward the rear-most play area. Naruto was uncoiling rope, dressed head to toe in red leather, and Sasuke was arranging tools in a row on a table. Sasuke wore a pair of black, shiny shorts over an obvious cock cage, and a chain connected his nipple piercings. He spotted them first, and nudged Naruto, who turned and lit up the room with a grin.

"Holy motherfucker," Naruto cried, embracing Tenzou much as Kiba had. "The hell you doin' here, Tenzou? You lost?"

"Nah," Kiba said before Tenzou could get a chance. "He's here with--"

"I know you," Sai said to Naruto, stepping forward and pointing. Something about the way Sai spoke made Tenzou's stomach drop.

Sasuke's mouth twisted into a smirk bordering on a sneer, and Naruto blinked. "Uh, cool?" Naruto said.

"We went to pre-school together for a year," Sai proclaimed.

Naruto chuckled uncomfortably. "I don't really remember pre-school too well."

"I do," Sai said. "You used to call me retarded, and I told everyone how small your penis is."

Kiba choked, Sasuke's eyes grew wider than should be humanly possible, and Tenzou didn't know if he should laugh or save Naruto from Sai.

"Oh, that was you?" Naruto asked with a Cheshire grin.

"Yes," Sai said.

Naruto cackled. "Oh fuck me. We must not have gotten along too well back then."

"I hated you," Sai said with undiluted sincerity that snuffed out any lingering humor from the air. "You were cruel to me." 

Naruto's mouth worked without sound before he found words. "You seriously remember being in pre-school?"

"Yes."

"The hell did you find this guy?" Naruto asked Tenzou.

"An art gallery." Tenzou sighed. "Sai, you should--"

"Sai?" Naruto interjected. "The artist Sai?"

"I am..." Sai retreated toward Tenzou, and Tenzou drew closer, resisting the temptation to wrap Sai in a protective embrace.

"Your work's awesome," Naruto said with enthusiasm. "Saw it in the gallery the other day."

"Thank you." Sai seemed somewhat mollified, but he turned to Kiba, who held up both hands in surrender. "I do not wish to interact with this man as a pupil or submissive."

"Who says you were going to get to?" Sasuke asked in a dangerous tone.

Sai pivoted and sized Sasuke up with a glance. Tenzou braced. "No one said it or is saying it, and I'm not allowing it, now. And I'm sorry you have to be with someone with such a small dick."

Kiba laughed and Sasuke's eyes grew preternaturally wide again. "Hey!" Naruto cried. "It's grown a little since I was fuckin' four, a'right?"

"Has it?" Sasuke purred in mock innocence.

"Don't start with me," Naruto warned without looking at his lover. "Look, man," he said to Sai, "I'm sorry 'bout whatever happened when we were little. And if you're gonna be comin' around, especially with Tenzou, here, we should be civil, right?" He held out a hand to Sai. "Truce?"

Sai stared at Naruto for a long few seconds without saying anything. "Okay. I accept your apology, though it is very late." Sai didn't take Naruto's hand, but he did nod a brief bow.

"Good enough, I guess." Naruto's smile didn't match his hard eyes when he looked at Tenzou. "This one yours?"

"Under my protection," Tenzou said.

"He needs it," Naruto said dryly.

"Yeah, we're tryin' to find a Dom for the night," Kiba put in. "Havin' a bit of a time. As you might gather."

"Well, it won't be Naruto," Sasuke said, with that blend of petulant and authoritative that seemed to be Sasuke's specialty. "He's busy."

"I got that, princess," Kiba growled with an eyeroll, and he overrode whatever Sasuke was about to say next. "I was jus' bringin' the new guy over 'cause he said somethin' 'bout learnin' more, and I know Naru's passed all Tenzou's tests, so figured..."

"Thank you, Kiba," Tenzou said, so weary he worried he might fall down where he stood. "It was a reasonable plan at the time."

"Anyway," Naruto shook himself and hugged Tenzou again. "Always good to see you, man. Don't be such a stranger, right?"

"We'll see," Tenzou replied.

"Good luck," Sasuke called with terrific sweetness as the three of them wandered away, led again by Sai, who stopped in the middle of the club in front of the catwalk. 

"Who else is a Dom?" Sai demanded of Kiba.

"Ya mean other than yer sponsor, here?" Kiba said pointedly.

"I've told Tenzou what I want, and he has given me orders to fulfill tonight," Sai said, stubborn and righteous. 

Kiba looked at Tenzou, baffled, and Tenzou sighed. "It's not as though I don't occasionally question my sanity, too, Kiba."

"No shit?" Kiba muttered, and he did a double take that made Tenzou turn.

The man who'd been sitting next to Itachi was approaching, hands behind his back and slight smile turning thin lips. He was taller than Tenzou and slender, with black hair that was cut in long pieces around his angular, pointed face. He wore a dark gray coat with tails, a simple dark shirt, a blood-red vest, black slacks, and shiny dress shoes. His skin was pale and his eyes were large and lazy, the color like sherry in dim light. "Pardon me," he said, addressing Tenzou. "But I couldn't help but overhear you were seeking a Dominant's assistance for the evening?"

"Yes," Sai said, but Tenzou put a hand on Sai's shoulder, and Sai shut his mouth.

"I don't think we've met," Tenzou said carefully. Something about this man set off every warning bell Tenzou had.

"We haven't, it's true," the man agreed. He bowed from the waist, hand over his heart. "I am Sebastian Michaelis, at your service."

The name rang even more bells. "You seem very familiar."

Sebastian chuckled. "I am a familiar personage of sorts. I'm an entrepreneur, much like yourself, Mr. Asashi. A small business owner. Perhaps we've met in Town Hall meetings or fund raisers? I've also held a minor city office, here and there."

"Maybe," Tenzou agreed, something still nagging at him. Not to mention creeping him out. "What's your business?"

"The occult," Sebastian said casually with a lift of peaked eyebrows. "Magic, mysteries, things of that nature."

"Creepy shit," Kiba summed up.

"In two words, precisely," Sebastian said with a wide, reptilian smile.

"Not exactly my area of interest," Tenzou commented.

"Ah, well, I suppose it might have been a more mundane meeting through my former occupation."

"Which was?"

"Private counsel."

"Yer a lawyer?" Kiba blurted.

"Indeed."

The chimes of recognition sounded in Tenzou's mind. It'd been years ago, now, but Jack had gotten obsessed with some story making the headlines in local news. "The Phantonhive case."

"Goodness, you remember it?" Sebastian said.

"I do. A young boy lost his parents in a fire."

"It is true," Sebastian agreed, nodding. "I was a family friend and represented young Ciel in court."

"So you caught the guys?" Kiba asked. "Who did the crime?"

"Oh, I assure you, anyone who means ill will to Ciel is met with justice." Sebastian sighed. "I was appointed his guardian for a while, but now he's all grown and powerful in his own right." Sebastian smiled at Sai. "You remind me some of him, I have to say. I noticed you when you first arrived."

"Oh?" Sai asked, voice strangely flat.

"I don't recall you on the membership list," Tenzou said.

"I'm not a member," Sebastian said, still fixated on Sai. "Lord Uchiha was good enough to invite me as a guest."

Well, naturally, Tenzou thought. Leave it to the damned Uchiha to know every weird motherfucker in a five thousand mile radius. Tenzou ground his teeth.

"Tell me, might I have your name?" Sebastian asked Sai.

"It's Sai."

"Just Sai?"

"To you, yes."

Sebastian laughed. "I see."

"You're a Dom?"

"I do enjoy the flavor of sadism and control," Sebastian answered.

"Don't we all," Tenzou cut in. "And while we appreciate the interest and offer to help, I'm not sure he's interested in--" Tenzou broke off when Sai shrugged out from under Tenzou's hand.

"Then we should play," Sai said, loud and firm. Tenzou's heart stopped dead in his chest. 

"Oh, absolutely," Sebastian agreed, holding out a gloved hand. Sai reached for it, and it was like watching a murder in slow motion.

"Kid's under Tenzou's protection," Kiba said, coming to Tenzou's rescue when he couldn't find his wits or tongue or sense. 

"Oh?" Sebastian asked, and Sai's hand froze hovering over Sebastian's.

"Qualifications," Tenzou said gruffly, shaking out of the fog.

"I have them," Sebastian said smoothly.

"What are they?" 

"I was trained by Master Lucifer in a club called Abaddon. It's in New Orleans. You may have heard of it? Lovely city. So much sin. Reminds me of this one. That was... goodness. Twenty years ago? Since then I assure you I've had my measure of submissives and Masters, alike, and learned much behind the whip and on my knees. I do love to serve to mutual benefit. And I insist that you observe sweet Sai and me for the duration of the night, just to make sure I meet each and every marked need."

Tenzou was going to be sick. He didn't like or trust this man, but it had nothing to do with Scene and everything to do with personality. The man wasn't safe, Tenzou didn't care how well he threw tails or tied knots or how long the guy'd been at it. "No," said Tenzou, his mouth open to say more.

"I accept your qualifications," said Sai, before Tenzou got another word in edgewise, and Tenzou glared sharply at Sai.

Sebastian looked from Tenzou to Sai and back again. "Oh, dear?"

"No fuckin' way," Kiba reinforced.

Sebastian seemed taken aback. "Ah, well, I wouldn't want to cause difficulty."

"You won't," Sai said, and, like magic, Sai was no longer the quiet, pliant boy listening to others speak as though he wasn't there. He turned to Tenzou, dark eyes swirling with emotions Tenzou couldn't identify, but they were murky like ghost ships under a moonless sky.

"I am under your protection, but not yours, right?" Sai asked.

"Right," Tenzou said hesitantly. "But--"

"Which means I can still make my own choices, and I like him."

"Why in the hell...?" Kiba asked, but Tenzou barely heard him. 

"Sai..." Tenzou began. "Don't--"

Quick like a viper, Sai was next to Tenzou, on tiptoe and speaking quietly and even rationally into Tenzou's face. "He is a Dom. He is not you. He is not a book nor by the book. I wanted to go home with you. I want _only_ you. But you wanted to come here. You wanted to lie to yourself by commanding me." Sai took a harsh breath and grabbed Tenzou's shirt. "This is what happens when we go at your liar's pace. This is what it feels like when you let me go to someone else." Sai shook Tenzou by the lapels and let go just as swiftly. Tenzou would have fallen on his ass if Kiba hadn't caught him.

"Tenzou?" Kiba whispered, worried, but Tenzou could only stare as Sai deliberately took Sebastian's hand, and Sebastian tucked it under his arm. Tenzou saw the boy flinch at the contact, but Sebastian seemed not to notice.

"Goodness," Sebastian said. "Such lengths people go to fulfill desires."

"Tenzou." Kiba tried again, but Tenzou's ears rang with a thousand gongs.

"I want to be tied and beaten," Sai said, sounding distant and like the whole business bored and angered him.

"With pleasure." And with an amused glance at Tenzou, Sebastian began to lead Sai toward a play area. "Do join us when you're able?"

Sai didn't so much as falter as he walked away, and Tenzou knew Kiba was speaking to him, and it was probably something Tenzou should hear. He thought other people might be staring at him, curious and worried, and Tenzou probably looked like he felt: hurt, horrified, stunned, sick, weak, helpless, foolish, damned. Here he was, one-time teacher, one-time Master, and now a broken, wilted man. He couldn't move, and he couldn't speak. He was frozen to the floor, and the image of the tree came to haunt him once more. 

The birch was shaking, trembling like the very earth beneath it was quaking. Ice snapped and rained to the cold soil below. The bark got stripped as chunks of snow fell into piles. Little branches evaporated into splinters, bigger ones bowed, cracked, and sprang into place. Heat rose, vast and sudden, and it roared through the ground and into the roots. It swarmed up the trunk, filled the cells, the rings, the _life_ of the tree. The frost boiled to mist, and Tenzou's spine straightened as the limbs unfurled, higher and higher to the shrouded sun.

Tenzou thought of wood, of saws, of edges and chisels and hammers and nails. The scent of forest, turpentine, and paint rose rich in his mind, he heard a faint sigh in his left ear that was not Kiba and was not himself. 

In the breath was a single word, and that word was, " _No_."

"Oh shit," Kiba said, calmly, but from behind Tenzou, which was weird until Tenzou realized he was advancing on Sebastian and Sai in long, sturdy strides. He didn't touch Sebastian, but he grabbed Sai by the back of the neck. His hand wrapped, clenched, and yanked Sai out of Sebastian's grasp and to Tenzou's right. Tenzou could tell the instinct to block and fight was upon Sai, so Tenzou did the only sane and logical thing that a well-trained professional soldier would do in these circumstances: he shoved a hand between Sai's legs and cupped Sai's cock and balls in a mean squeeze.

Sai's intake of breath got Tenzou hard. Sai's lips parted, his eyes flew to Tenzou, wide and full of what Tenzou readily identified as lust and hope and yearning. Tenzou knew that look like he knew the head of his own dick. 

Sai's chest rose and fell, spine arching with the force of Tenzou's dual grip. Tenzou leaned until they were nose to nose, and he smelled mint, soap, and sweat. "I... said... _no_." Tenzou spoke slowly and without malice, Sai whimpered, and _shit_ but Tenzou loved that sound. He'd _missed_ that sound.

"Do you understand?" Tenzou asked.

"Yes," Sai replied.

"Do you consent?"

"To anything that is you."

Tenzou rewarded Sai with a stroke, and the cock beneath the silk was elongating, filling. Sai's shaky exhale blew on Tenzou's lips, and Sai groaned, the note of longing every bit as loud as Sai's earlier proclamations to men who were not Tenzou. Who could never _be_ Tenzou, and who were not worthy of Sai.

"I see circumstances have changed," said Sebastian, and Tenzou was startled to realize he was still standing in the club in the presence of others beside Sai. He needed to correct that right the fuck now.

Tenzou let Sai go long enough to scoop the small boy into his arms. Sai clung to him, face buried in Tenzou's chest. Sai was heavier than he looked, but no burden too great to bear, and Tenzou marched away from the gawking crowd, out the door, and up the stairs. Sai was panting, and Tenzou held him tighter, wondering how in the hell he was going to get to his passkey when he saw the door was already open. A trickle of concern slithered in around the pulsing throb of mania, but when Tenzou saw Neji and Shikamaru, it receded. 

Neji went stock still at the sight of Tenzou holding Sai, and Shikamaru ran into Neji's back with a startled note. Shikamaru's jaw dropped a second later, but neither man said a single word as Tenzou rushed by, and Tenzou made it out the main door into the club before it had the chance to close all the way.

"It's all right," Tenzou caught himself speaking, and he realized he'd been murmuring to Sai the entire time. What he'd been saying, God only knew. "No one's going to touch you but me." Tenzou gulped around the lump in his throat. He couldn't remember ever being this... this... whatever the fuck it was, and he stumbled on the last step leading to Bliss.

Truck. Tenzou had to get to the truck. He'd left his coat and cell at the check counter, but he still had his wallet and, more importantly, his keys. Tenzou set his resolve, and the next he knew he was balancing Sai and digging out the button to unlock the Hummer. He swung the passenger door open, and as gently as he could, Tenzou set Sai on the seat. Sai dove for him, and Tenzou tucked Sai's arms to Sai's chest. He shushed and soothed and shut Sai into the truck. 

Tenzou blinked and he was yanking on the other door's handle. He remembered to breathe, and he was inside the car. He'd just managed to hit the locking mechanism, and Sai was on him. Crawling, wriggling, pressing, but not kissing or saying anything. Tenzou hugged Sai, trying to sort out the chaos. He could barely rub two brain cells together, and he wasn't sure why the hell that was, but he had to do _something_ to comfort Sai.

"Sai, what's... why are you... it's okay, now." Tenzou was trying to get his breath and couldn't, and Sai's frustrated yell was freakin' deafening.

"I... I want... I..." Sai tensed, shook, and damn it all, but Tenzou was going to fuck the kid into the dash. 

"You what?" Tenzou rasped, hands betraying him and feeling the bare skin, the chill from the damp night, the heat of Sai's body, the smooth fabric covering Sai's ass. Sai gasped against Tenzou's throat, and Tenzou's eyes rolled into the back of his skull.

"I'm... I'm aroused, and want... want you to touch me. I want you to make me come. I want... I want to kiss you, but I've never kissed anyone, and I don't know if you'll let me, and I don't know what happened, but you're being so _honest_ , and it's beautiful, and you carried me, and I thought I was going to orgasm when I felt your hand on my--"

Tenzou got a fistful of black hair, tugged Sai away from Tenzou's neck, and pressed his mouth to Sai's. Tenzou thought the groan was his own and the shocked sound was Sai's, but it really could have been the other way around. 

Sai drew back, licked his lips, breathing fast and heavy. "Oh..." Sai kissed Tenzou, just a mash of mouths, but Tenzou answered it. "Oooh... God..." Sai dove again, and this time, Tenzou held Sai still by the hair. He guided Sai through an exploring, hungry kiss, grazing Sai's upper and then lower lip with his teeth, and while Sai's mouth was open, Tenzou filled it with his tongue. 

Sai scrambled closer, muffled noises spilling through his nose, and Sai repeated the exact same pattern on Tenzou. Their tongues mingled and twined, and Tenzou shifted on the bench seat until Sai was sprawled out to the right and Tenzou was holding Sai's upper body in his arms. There was no doubt, no nagging voices calling out rules or boundary lines. Even if there was, Tenzou was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to hear anything except the thud of his heart and the sounds Sai made with every single action. It was all new to Sai, all shocking, and Tenzou's brain didn't surface for air until he had a hand rubbing Sai's cock through the pants, Sai's chest lifted to his mouth, and his teeth embedded in the flesh around Sai's hard nipple. 

" _Nn-ah! Ah... Ah!_ " Sai's arm was slung around Tenzou's shoulders, fingers clinging to the fabric of Tenzou's shirt. His head thudded against the edge of the window, and he thrust into Tenzou's palm, rutting for friction. "Oh God, it's so good. I want more. I have to have more. I _have_ to."

Tenzou reared up, met Sai's dazed gaze. "Ask me nicely, boy." Tenzou twisted Sai's nipple, let it go, slapped Sai's chest with a heated hand, and nearly died at the look of unabashed, stunned greed on Sai's sweet face.

"Please do that again!" Sai called at full volume.

"This?" Tenzou asked, voice a husky slur, and he tortured Sai's flesh and smacked it hard enough to leave a reddened mark behind.

"Yes. That. Oh... shit." Sai's voice grew higher, and his heel dug into the truck's seat, lower half lifting. His cock tented his pants, and the silk was darker where it was wet with pre-cum.

Tenzou dug his fingers into the meat of Sai's chest, massaging and digging, and he drew closer and kissed Sai. "Like it when I play with your tits, boy?" Another set of smacks, and Sai's mouth fell open, and he nodded slowly, choking on a cry when Tenzou pinched, pulled, and flicked Sai's nipple.

"Like... like... call me..." Sai babbled and called out through spanks, digs, a drag of nails, and Tenzou squeezed Sai's inner thigh to a keening whine.

"Mm? Like it when I call you 'boy?'"

"Uh-huh," Sai nodded faster, undulating and rippling in Tenzou's lap. He twisted, trying to get Tenzou's hand where he wanted it. His face crumpled when Tenzou didn't comply, and Sai's eyes opened. They were damp at the corners, and Sai's effort to swallow was visible. 

"Look at you, so sweet for me." Tenzou hummed, and he thought he might pass out with the combination of innocence and eagerness squirming in his lap. He hooked his fingers under the waistband of Sai's pants and slowly tugged it down. He watched Sai's face change from frustrated to astounded, and when Sai's cock cleared the band, it slapped back against Sai's belly. 

Sai froze, and Tenzou caressed creamy inner thighs. "Damn, that's a gorgeous cock you've got for me, boy." And it was. Thick at the base, no curve, not overly long, not short, and red-rouge at the glistening head. 

Sai trembled. "Hearing you say that is... I... can I... I feel... can I call you..." 

Tenzou tore his eyes off the gathering moisture in Sai's slit and lifted a hand to stroke Sai's cheek. "You want to call me something?" he asked, tender and low.

"Yes." Sai's eyes were darker than death in the witching hour.

"What do you want to call me, boy?" Tenzou drew closer, kissed Sai light and quick. He rubbed Sai's abdomen in lazy circles, and the backs of his fingers brushed Sai's twitching dick.

"I..." Sai lifted a hand and clung to Tenzou's shoulder. He searched Tenzou's face, dragged Tenzou closer for another, longer mesh of mouths that Tenzou granted Sai with a quiet moan. When Tenzou broke the contact, Sai grabbed the back of Tenzou's neck, kept their faces almost touching. "Can I... can I call you Daddy?" Sai's whisper was punctuated by a whimper.

Crippling, aching, need surged through Tenzou; stole his oxygen and sucker punched him in the gut. Only rarely had he ever played those games with Jack, and Tenzou had asked for it, not Jack. It was just a title, but it strummed the dark, often-denied chord in Tenzou that loved to Master, that loved pretty boys barely in their twenties trussed up and on their knees... that loved making those pretty boys cry, beg, scream, bruise, and come until they couldn't remember their own name.

Tenzou kept those needs in a secure cage. He had always respected those whom he taught who were younger than he was. He had only played with them to demonstrate, had never taken it too far, and he'd endured and loved Jack's gentle laughter and not-so-gentle occasional stirring of those needs over the years.

And now the lock on that careful cage lay broken on the ground, crackling in an inferno.

" _Mmmnf_..." Tenzou finally breathed a growl that reverberated in the close quarters. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, boy, you can call me Daddy." 

Sai panted rapid fire, and he nearly screamed behind pressed lips when Tenzou circled, fisted, and started to stroke Sai's cock. "You like that, boy?"

"OhfuckDaddy, yes... _oooh_ yes..." Sai moaned, eyelashes fluttering.

"That's a good boy." Tenzou's croon morphed into a snarl. "Tell Daddy how much you fucking like my hands on you."

"Love it," Sai mumbled. "Need it. Better than a-anything."

"You're Daddy's perfect boy, right now, like this, sweet and hard and doing what I say."

"For you... I want anything for you."

"Good boy, Sai." Tenzou sped up. "Tell me who you think about when you stroke this thick dick, boy."

"You, Daddy," Sai's head fell to one side.

"Mm," Tenzou grunted, letting go of Sai's cock and cupping his balls. "And when you play with these?"

"I imagine you," Sai gasped, and he struggled until his pants were around his ankles. He kicked until a boot hit the floorboard, and he untangled one foot from the silk. His heel thumped against the dashboard. The truck's windows were completely fogged, the air ripe with the smell of sex and dick and sweat. 

"What about here, boy?" Tenzou asked, the pads of two fingers pressing against Sai's asshole. Sai's entire body jerked, and the ring fluttered. "Mm? You play with this sweet hole and think of me, boy?"

"I... _oh shit_... I..." Sai flailed and found purchase on the steering wheel. "I fuck myself with a paintbrush." He swallowed, licking his lips with his eyes closed. "It's fat. And thick. And I shove it inside me and imagine it's your prick fucking me deep."

Tenzou stifled his own cry by biting his lower lip until it bled. He lapped up blood, got a fist into Sai's hair, and Tenzou gripped and pulled until he could watch Sai's pulse pound. He stopped circling Sai's entrance and took Sai's hand off the wheel. With their eyes locked on one another, Tenzou worked up saliva, and Sai lay gasping for air around weak moans as Tenzou took two of Sai's fingers into his mouth. He coated them until drool ran down his chin, coming off Sai with a slurp. 

"Show Daddy how you fuck yourself, boy." 

Sai reached down between his legs. He hooked his remaining boot on the back of the bench seat, and the other foot braced against the door. He curled, lifting his hips and pushing his tight balls out of the way. Sai set wet fingertips to his asshole, and the slow, slick push inside was accompanied by a broken, battered, hitching groan. The edges of Tenzou's vision turned grey and purple, and he grabbed Sai's cock just as Sai began pumping the fingers in and out, fucking with a steady, swift rhythm.

"Oh... oh... oh..." Sai whimpered notes with every thrust and tug, and Tenzou turned his head to kiss Sai. It was messy, muddled with both their moans, and Sai's cock pulsed in Tenzou's fist at the same time Sai sucked a sharp inhale that robbed Tenzou of their mingling breath. An overwhelming wave of affectionate, protective possession stole over Tenzou, and he gently nosed Sai's sweaty cheek.

"Go on, precious," Tenzou murmured, stunningly loud and clear over the slap of striving flesh. "Come for Daddy."

The reaction was electric. Sai drew into a wicked arch, head back and strangled cry spilling through clenched teeth. His fingers plunged, Tenzou's fist stroked fast, furious, and fierce, and Sai came in thick, heavy jets that hit his chin, coated his chest, and sprinkled his stomach. Tenzou didn't stop until Sai's cries turned pained. He let go of Sai's spent cock, and lifted his dirty hand to Sai's lips. The command died on Tenzou's tongue, though, when Sai started to lick and lap and eat his own cum off Tenzou's fingers. 

Sai paused, holding on to Tenzou's wrist with both hands. "I like getting a taste, Daddy."

Tenzou caught Sai's lower lip in gentle suction. "Me, too, boy. Oh... me, too."

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank everyone for their patient support while I've dealt with all manner of real life crises in the past two months. I hope this 8200 word chunk helps to show my appreciation. This is NOT the last chapter of the story. See end for other notes. Much love and many, many thanks. ♥
> 
> 1\. Yes, that was me doin' the cross-over thang again. I hope you like it. You have Gaia77/Kyuubi1010 to thank for our guest star's appearance.  
> 2\. I made up the painting, the artist, and the titles.  
> 3\. For the record, if any person *ever* introduces themselves as "Master Lucifier" just do me a personal favor and run in the opposite direction, yes?  
> 4\. Between Kakashi and Itachi, I think everyone in Monoshizukanohi is known and fucked.  
> 5\. Of COURSE there's a gateway to hell in New Orleans.  
> 5\. THIS IS NOT THE END. Goodness... we still have Tenzou's dom guilt to deal with. And it will be epic.  
> 6\. Thank you again for all your patience, notes, virtual baked goods and support. You've no idea what it has meant over the last few difficult weeks.
> 
> I don't own the Bleach boy, the Black Butler guys, or the Naruto men. I do own the world, the plot, & the originals.
> 
> Much love & foggy windows,  
> ♥Dee


	8. The Truth Shall Set You Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which guilt rears its ugly head, and Sai bashes it with a hammer...

Tenzou put the truck in park and shut off the headlights. He sat staring at his own front door for a long moment. He swallowed on a dry throat and then, for the first time since they'd left the Break parking lot, Tenzou looked at his passenger. 

Sai rested with his head turned toward Tenzou. After they'd cooled down, they'd put Sai's clothing back on together, and it'd taken monumental effort on both their parts to get Sai situated and buckled into the seat. Tenzou had wanted to hold Sai, and Sai hadn't wanted to let go of Tenzou. 

Now Sai appeared to be dozing, but stirred as though he could feel Tenzou's gaze upon him. Sai smiled. "I almost slept," he said.

Tenzou pulled his keys out of the ignition. "Stay there." 

Tenzou's knees were weak when he stepped out of the car. He shut the door and slowly walked around to the other side. His right hand was stiff with Sai's dried cum, and Tenzou's cock remained at half mast, pressing against the fabric of his slacks. He took a deep, shaky breath, opened the truck's door, and helped Sai out and onto the driveway. Sai hummed and fell against Tenzou, drunk on the connection they currently, however tenuously, shared.

"Come on, Sai." Tenzou hugged Sai's shoulders and guided the kid into Tenzou's home. He bolted the door once they were inside, reluctant to take his hands off Sai, but forcing himself out of necessity. The grandfather clock ticked, and the buttons on the security alarm were too loud as Tenzou entered the code to secure the property.

"Oh." Sai stood in the foyer and spun in a circle. "It's so... you."

"Thanks," Tenzou replied. He hesitated. The decision to bring Sai home had been made while Tenzou was high on lust and endorphins. Taking Sai back to some looming castle home on a hill after hauling him out of Break and doing what they'd done in the truck had seemed wrong. It went against Tenzou's code of ethics to leave a partner alone after being so intimate in a Scene context. Going out for drinks or food was out of the picture, as Tenzou didn't think he could face humanity, much less protect Sai from too much interaction while they were out among crowds. Now that they were here, though, Tenzou wasn't sure what to do. A flicker of insecurity and embarrassment arose; he'd been so sure in the truck and in the moment. And now, here he was, staring at Sai staring at him.

"Something to drink," Tenzou stated, not making it a question. He gestured for Sai to follow and they walked down a narrow hallway and into the dining and kitchen area. Tenzou went to the sink and washed his hands. He dried them, opened the fridge, and squinted at the shock of bright light. He removed two bottles of water. He handed one to Sai, who took it, opened the cap, and drank. Sai's dark, dark eyes never left Tenzou, and Tenzou felt positively strip-searched beneath the adoring, calculating scrutiny.

"I can take you back to your place, if you like," Tenzou said softly, sipping at his own water and trying not to squirm. 

Sai's frown appeared in a flash. "Why?"

"It's just an option, Sai." Tenzou sighed. "I don't want you to feel... obligated, somehow."

"Obligated," Sai repeated. His frown deepened. "I do not feel compelled or committed to being here. I don't want to be anywhere else."

"All right," Tenzou said amiably. He couldn't muster the patience or effort to explain himself or what he meant by "obligation." He wasn't even sure that was the right word. For now, Tenzou supposed, Sai being here made some sense, but Tenzou had to get it together and state the rules or the plan. If only he knew what in the hell either of those were.

The sink's faucet dripped. A gusty night breeze rustled the poplar tree outside the kitchen window. Sai set down his empty bottle and drew closer, slinking around the island. When he touched Tenzou's arm, Tenzou knew this needed to stop. The guilt-panic-fear fought with the physical need that pulsed to a war drum beat in Tenzou's veins. When Sai slid his fingers to Tenzou's stomach and south to Tenzou's belt, Tenzou jerked away and grabbed Sai's wrist. "No," Tenzou said.

"But I want to," Sai breathed. From anyone else, it might have been plaintive. From Sai, it was merely honest.

"Sai--"

"This... is not obligation, either," Sai's deep voice rumbled, and he put his free hand back on Tenzou's belt. "I want to," Sai repeated, whispering, "Daddy," and undoing Tenzou's zipper.

Tenzou tried to say all sorts of things, but all that came out was a weak grunt. Sai's fingers were so gentle, unclasping belt and unfastening button. Sai stepped closer, and his hair was soft under Tenzou's chin and cheek. His bare upper body radiated warmth. He smelled like sex, sweat, and man. Tenzou gasped and shut his eyes when Sai's careful touch skimmed the underside of Tenzou's cock through Tenzou's underwear. Sai didn't try to pull it out or stroke or anything of the sort. He just petted Tenzou in a tender exploration that had Tenzou hard and rocking in seconds. Tenzou's hand found Sai's shoulder and squeezed, and he moaned when Sai took that as a hint to do the same to Tenzou's dick.

"I like this," Sai whispered, and the sound of their mingled breathing filled the moonlit kitchen. "I like this a lot." Sai grew bolder, cupping the shape of Tenzou in his palm and rubbing. The sensation kicked thought to the curb, and Tenzou bent his neck, lips brushing Sai's cheek. Sai tilted his head to the side, and Tenzou's mouth met throat. Tenzou licked along tendon.

"Oh..." Sai took hold of Tenzou's underwear with both hands. He drew it up, over, and down, and Tenzou sank teeth into Sai's neck the instant Sai's bare grip encircled Tenzou and stroked. Sai called out, but the noise was quiet and controlled. 

Tenzou shuddered, got a handful of Sai's hair, and kneaded Sai's back. Want planted itself in his middle and sent roots to every inch of Tenzou's body, thickening his length further in Sai's slow-dragging fist. He shifted his weight and staggered, hip hitting the countertop. Sai went with him, pumping faster. Tenzou tried to get his voice to work, wanting to command, to praise, to direct, to _do_ something, but Sai's rumbling words cut Tenzou off before Tenzou could start.

"You're so long... And... God... hard. I did that. I'm _doing_ that." Sai's amazement was tangible, like an embrace all of its own. "You like this, too. Like me jerking your prick, making it bead up and... The shape of it... I want to taste it. Feel it. Put it in me. Draw it." Sai panted, and Tenzou had to grab the oven door handle to stop the room from spinning. It banged dully, the metallic noise echoing. 

Sai pressed his forehead to Tenzou's shoulder, gaze down and watching what he was doing to Tenzou. "I want..." Tenzou felt and heard Sai's gulp. "I want this cock to _consume_ me, Daddy."

Tenzou would swear later that he actually blacked out for a second or two. When he came back to himself, he was holding Sai with bruising force and barking gritty orders in Sai's ear.   
_  
"Faster."  
_  
Sai sped up, breath quickening in time.  
 _  
"Nngh... fuck. Harder."_

Sai's grip drew tighter near to painful, and Tenzou hissed. He rolled into Sai's rhythm, biting and kissing anything he could. He could hear himself, growling and struggling and gasping, and God of all, yes, he wanted this. He wanted to get off. He wanted to let Sai do this for him and to him. He craved it with such sudden and vast intensity that it cracked a reflective surface spanning over a cavern of yawning need, and that... scared the immortal hell out of Tenzou. What lived in those trenches was scarred and old and had eyes that continually wept. It was huge, the thing that had survived underneath the frozen wastes, bigger than the tree and its limbs... the rest of the iceberg, hidden far, far, far below. Exposing Sai to that beast was akin to setting a budding sapling before a ravenous, wrathful forest god. The god might plant the sapling, let it grow... or the god might take the sapling between its teeth and listen to its death throes.

Tenzou couldn't expose Sai to the innermost workings of Tenzou's self. Not like this, not now, not... Just no. All at once, the hand on Tenzou didn't feel good, anymore; it felt threatening. Sai against him didn't feel comforting; it felt ominous. Fear flew like bats fleeing from that cave, and though Tenzou jerked and pulsed and clung to Sai, he bellowed a helpless, _"STOP."_

Sai did as directed, gasping for air. He got a hand on the back of Tenzou's neck and yanked Tenzou's face to his. Sai didn't kiss Tenzou, though, peering at him instead. Sai didn't ask a damned thing, but he didn't have to, really. His expression said it all.

Tenzou shook his head. "I..." He bit his lip on the apology. Mere words would not contain the sorrow that ate Tenzou alive from the inside. 

"Daddy?" Sai asked.

"Tenzou," he corrected, shaking off a shiver. "Use... that name's only for... only when I say, okay?"

"Tenzou?" Sai asked in the exact same tone, as though to Sai there was no difference in title and name. No shame, no humiliation, no negative impact whatsoever.

Tenzou whimpered. He cleared his throat and got a hand around the one Sai still had encircling Tenzou's dick. "Stop," Tenzou whispered, and Sai's touch fell away without protest. Tenzou put his clothing back together.

"Did I... did I hurt you?" Sai asked. "I didn't mean to hurt--"

"No," Tenzou said firmly. He drew Sai close. "I... it's... ever since..."

"Please," Sai said after a long moment of Tenzou working for the explanation. Once again, Tenzou could tell the word was used in a last-ditch effort to gain understanding, not as a plea and not as most people would say it. For some crazy reason, that helped Tenzou find clarity.

"I've not gotten off since Jack died," Tenzou said dully. 

Sai worked himself out of Tenzou's hug, staring into Tenzou's face. "Is it intentional?" Sai asked.

"No. I just... don't seem able."

Sai seemed to consider, and he did it without appearing hurt or frustrated. "Have you tried to get off with anyone else since he died?"

"No," Tenzou replied, voice raspy, but he made himself look Sai in the eye.

"Have you tried by yourself?"

"Yes."

"And you couldn't?"

"No."

"Oh." Sai chewed his lower lip. He sighed through his nose. "Did you want to orgasm while my hand was on your cock?" he asked in sincere innocence.

"Oh... yeah..." Tenzou's dick pulsed to remind him just exactly how much.

Sai's head tilted. "If you've not tried with anyone else, but wanted to with me, then--"

Tenzou pushed off the counter. He ran a hand through his hair, tried to pull Sai to him, again, but Sai shied away, looking Tenzou dead in the eyes... In the heart... soul.

There was no choice but the truth. "If you kept going and I couldn't, I'd... it'd be... I'd be too disappointed in myself, Sai. It's not you, nothing you did. I just couldn't... deal." Tenzou thought the confession might kill him, especially since what he didn't say was that if Sai had kept going and Tenzou couldn't finish, it would, somehow, translate to proof of his worst fear: that Tenzou was a broken man only meant to be kept company by ghosts of happiness long dead.

"Okay," Sai said, and the boy shook out tension right before Tenzou's eyes. Sai's smile was shy. "I understand."

"You... you do?" Tenzou hated the desperation that had snuck into his tone.

The smile vanished, replaced by heart-stopping seriousness. "Yes. I do. I wanted you. When we met in the gallery, I wanted you to take me home. I wanted you to keep talking. I wanted to know more. When I followed you, and you pinned me, and then you ran, I wanted to chase you. I wanted you to understand that what I wanted wasn't going to go away. When you called and asked to meet, I knew you did understand. You still try to lie to yourself, but you understand, even if you don't like it. And just now you weren't lying to anyone." Sai lifted a hand and touched Tenzou's lips. "I understand what it means to want something that involves another person so much that you think it will unmake you if it doesn't happen. I will wait until you're not afraid. I will wait until you see that what you want will remake you, instead."

Tenzou stared at Sai until his eyes watered, and Tenzou had to blink. Sai didn't seem to mind; he traced Tenzou's mouth and studied Tenzou's face without a single ounce of apprehension or inhibition. 

Finally, Tenzou found his voice hiding behind his deeper internal organs and dragged it out for use. "We should get some sleep."

Sai brightened. "I want to sleep with you."

"There's a guest room," Tenzou countered.

"Why would I want to sleep in the--"

"Sai. Don't, okay? Just... don't argue this one with me."

Sai clearly didn't approve, but he gave Tenzou a tight nod. "Thank you," Tenzou said.

Together they walked through the house and up the stairs. Every part of Tenzou's body weighed a metric ton, and he had to concentrate to keep one foot moving in front of the other. Sai didn't seem as affected, but when they reached the guest room and Tenzou switched on the bedside lamp, Sai practically collapsed into a chair to take off his shoes and get out of his clothes.

"If you want a shower, there's a bathroom through there." Tenzou gestured to a closed door that hid a walk-in closet and full bath.

Sai nodded to show he'd heard, but left his clothing scattered near the chair and walked, gloriously nude, to the bed. He yanked down the covers, threw aside the pillows, and crawled onto the mattress. He settled on his stomach and sighed.

Tenzou reached for the lamp's switch and paused. "Sai?" 

"Yes?" Sai propped up on his elbows.

"I want to apologize for breaking the rules tonight." Tenzou forced himself to say the words.

Sai blinked up at him. "You didn't."

Tenzou shook his head, barreling ahead. "Hauling you out of the club... Hell, going there in the first place. And the--"

Sai snarled a shockingly angry, incoherent curse. He was standing with his hand over Tenzou's mouth faster than Tenzou could register the movement. "We followed all the damned rules. You didn't hurt me. You _helped_ me." Tenzou tried to speak, but Sai stomped his foot. Most of its emphatic force got lost in the memory foam, however. "No!" Sai commanded.

Tenzou yanked Sai's hand away. "The truck, Sai, it's--"

"Not the club!" Sai yelled, completely exasperated and flailing his arms wildly. "You said we would not do anything in Break, and we did not! The truck is not in the club, not of the club, no... no preposition connected to the club!"

Tenzou stared at the furious boy who sincerely looked like he was going to deliver his next protest with a right hook, and Tenzou started to laugh. It bubbled up out of nowhere, and once he started, Tenzou couldn't stop. 

"What's funny?" Sai demanded at volume, but Tenzou couldn't answer. He tried, but all that came out was a wheeze.

"Why are you laughing?" Sai repeated, but the anger faded and got replaced by curiosity and interest. "Are you laughing at me?"

"No," Tenzou managed, shaking his head and hanging on to the dresser. Sai hopped off the bed and crowded Tenzou, suddenly eager and studious.

"No," Tenzou repeated, getting a hold of his hysteria and wrestling it into its cage. "I'm... no. Sai, I... you're right. The truck wasn't the club."

"I know." Sai clucked his tongue. "That's what I just said."

"Precious," Tenzou murmured, hugging Sai for a ferocious second. He let go and nudged the boy toward the bed. Sai wouldn't budge, too intent on gazing at Tenzou.

"Sleep, Sai."

"You're... you're almost cheerful."

"I'm exhausted, Sai. And so are you. Sleep." Another push. Sai ignored it.

"Is this what you're like when you almost get off? Because we should do that again. Soon."

"Bed, Sai. Now."

Mollified, Sai scrambled back into the guest bed, laying down on his belly and dutifully shutting his eyes. Tenzou switched off the light, hesitated for a fraction of a second, and kissed Sai's cheek.

"Good night, Sai."

"Good night, Tenzou."

~*~

The alarm clock told Tenzou it was four-thirty in the morning, but it didn't seem to have any useful insight as to why in the hell Tenzou was conscious. He tossed and turned, he beat his pillow, he attempted to find a cool spot on the sheets, and he tried what had to be a hundred positions before he gave up and flopped onto his back. He ran his hands over his face, trying once again to shut his eyes and channel sleep.

All he saw in the landscape of his inner eye was Sai in the throes of orgasm, or Sai with the frustrated frown, or Sai with the open sincerity...  
 _  
"Wait until you know that your want will remake you..."_

Tenzou kicked off the covers and rolled out of bed. He flicked on the light. It was now five a.m., and Tenzou shook like he'd just downed eighteen shots of espresso. Sleep was not going to happen anymore, and Tenzou admitted defeat. He got up and got dressed for a run. Sanity and the voice of reason were trying to break through the mental fog made from the memory of domineering sexual activity with Sai, but Tenzou wanted no part of that conversation. He didn't want to think about what he'd done, what lines he'd crossed, or what came next. He wanted just a couple more hours of isolation from guilt and responsibility. Just a couple. It didn't seem too much to ask.

After stepping into his shoes, Tenzou perfunctorily stretched, and he thought he heard something. He paused, bent over with his hamstrings protesting, but all was silent. Shrugging it off, Tenzou stood, twisted, got his back to pop, and... there it was again. The noise.

Voices.

Soundlessly, Tenzou walked out of his bedroom. Somewhere, a door's hinges creaked, and chill bumps rose on Tenzou's arms. He quickly crossed through his office and library, around the balcony overlooking the great room, and reached the guest room's threshold. The door was wide open, and Sai was sprawled across the bed, bare ass up, and evidently sound asleep. One foot hung off the edge of the mattress, and Sai's breathing was deep and even. Tenzou tore his eyes away from the vision of slumbering perfection and stared at the curtains hanging over the windows. They didn't move. He backed up and out of the room, into the middle of the hallway, and gazed in the direction of the in-law suite where Jack's paintings were stored and where Jack still... resided. 

Faintly, a door clicked shut.

Tenzou was down the hall in front of Jack's old room in a heartbeat, but he stopped himself short of putting a hand on the doorknob. He licked his lips, forced his arm to fall, and at long last, he turned and retreated toward the stairs. He flew down them, ran for the front door, and was off and running in the early morning fog when his mind caught up to his body. He ran faster, ran like he was being chased, and in a way, Tenzou supposed, he was. He tore through mist and passed by trees, fields, and driveways, and it took a solid two miles for the rhythm of physical exertion to clear his brain enough to think straight.

Somehow, Tenzou needed to define the boundaries in his relationship with Sai. He could admit it was a relationship, and he could admit he cared for the boy, and Tenzou knew it was stupid to deny he wanted Sai in all sorts of compromising ways. And Tenzou didn't really want to contemplate Sai's insights into Tenzou's specialized breed of angst. The kid understood far too much, but Tenzou felt a sense of duty and responsibility to protect Sai, even and maybe especially from Tenzou's own insecurities. Sai had shown last night that he did, actually, have some grip on balancing what he wanted and respecting what Tenzou could allow at the pace that didn't drive Tenzou totally crazy. If Sai could do that, and if Sai could forgive Tenzou for not engaging in some of the more sexual activities that often accompanied a Scene relationship, then maybe Tenzou could still show Sai the ropes, so to speak, and also keep their exploration sane. Slow enough that Tenzou didn't think he was railroading Sai into situations Sai didn't truly understand at an emotional level. And, Tenzou had to admit, slow enough that Tenzou could... piece himself back together. 

Tenzou took a sharp left, and he knew he was angry at himself when he had to slow his stride, else he outpace himself and lose control of his breathing. After another mile, Tenzou realized he didn't like the idea of healing himself with Sai. Not entirely. On one hand, it went with every principle Tenzou espoused when it came to Scene. Establishing trust and building confidence in both parties was one of the glorious things that happened when Scene was executed well. 

On the other hand, it seemed like Tenzou was inadvertently asking a lot of Sai in the arrangement. Or maybe Tenzou didn't want to put too much faith in the idea that Tenzou would come out of this exploration any more whole than he already was. That danced too closely to Tenzou's deeper fears. If Tenzou depended too much on Sai and what they were doing to help, or, God help Tenzou, fix him, then the expectations compounded into a nightmare from which Tenzou would not wake if the relationship didn't work or fell apart.

All of which begged the question: what in the hell was Tenzou supposed to do? He'd promised the kid Scene. Tenzou knew he could extricate himself from that if he had to, but he didn't want to. The disappointment in Sai's eyes would kill Tenzou faster than a sword through the heart.

Tenzou hadn't, however, promised anything when it came to sex. All their negotiations and discussions focused on Scene. In fact, even though they'd done more than Tenzou anticipated last night, they'd stuck to the primary rules, kept it to Scene and to Sai getting off, and he'd told Sai his dirty secret about the lack of orgasmic potential on his side of the equation. Things hadn't gone too far; they'd gone just far enough to showcase limits in all their painful, frustrating glory.

So now all Tenzou had to do was reinforce their Scene connection and explain in Sai-specific terms what could and couldn't happen sexually. That was where Tenzou could draw his lines, hold his boundaries, and maybe get the chance to do some mental catch-up.

...Right. Easy. Totally easy. It wasn't like Sai was the most desirable creature Tenzou had run into since Jack had died or anything.

Tenzou gnashed teeth, and he ran his last mile in one of his best times. He jogged the length of his driveway, enjoying the view of the sunrise, and crept back into the house. Tenzou knew Sai was awake because the lights in the great room, hallway, and dining room were blazing, and Tenzou heard Sai's voice. Tenzou stopped to grab a towel out of the bathroom along the way, and trotted around the corner into the kitchen.

"I don't know much about friendship," Sai was saying into Tenzou's phone. Sai was perched on top of the kitchen island, cross-legged, barefoot, and wearing the pants he'd worn to Break the night before. He had a stack of white paper in front of him and a promotional pen from Tenzou's company in one hand. Scattered around Sai in a loose circle were pieces of paper covered in ink sketches. All of them were of Tenzou, and in most of them, Tenzou was naked and balls deep in Sai. Tenzou swallowed, cock coming to life.

"Oh. He's here, now." Sai peeled the phone away from his ear and held it out to Tenzou. 

"Who is it?" Tenzou asked, although he had a fairly good idea.

"Kakashi," Sai answered.

"You called Kakashi?"

Sai's, _Are you insane?_ expression was getting more and more familiar. "No. I don't have his number."

"So you answered my phone?"

"It was ringing." Sai went back to his sketches.

"Of course it was," Tenzou muttered. He sighed and held the phone to his ear. "Hatake."

"I let you out of my sight for ten freakin' minutes, and _this_ is what you do?" Kakashi asked, so very pleased and amused with himself.

"I know," Tenzou muttered. "Just imagine what I'd do in a solid week without your interference."

"No, no, let me get this straight, because God knows I've been hearing about it all night and morning."

"You've what?" Tenzou's heart sank into his guts and rolled around.

"The great and former master Tenzou, teacher of all the younger kinky generation, martyr on the altar of love's suffering, keeper of the fiercest frown of all time--"

"Kakashi," Tenzou tried to interrupt, but it was no use.

"Not seen in your own club in months, and you march in with one of the most... shall we say, endearing? Submissives anyone has, apparently, seen in a long time. Kiba had all kinds of fun on Twitter, by the way."

Tenzou put his forehead on the counter. "Uh huh."

"So did Naruto."

"Peachy."

Kakashi chuckled and adopted the movie voice-over tone again: "Only to be accosted by the creepy fuck that Itachi decided to bring as a guest solely to annoy the status quo, I think, and when it looks like our sweet Sai is on the brink of self-destruction--"

"Kakashi, I really might have to kill you."

"Don't," Sai said from his perch. 

"--the Dom of the Universe emerges from his icy cocoon to claim, demand, and haul Sai's fine ass out of the club, barreling over Neji and Shikamaru in the process -- Neji was _quite_ amused--"

"I live to provide his majesty entertainment," Tenzou deadpanned.

"--and spend what, from the eye-witness accounts said, appeared to be one hell of a foggy fun half hour in the front seat of your Hummer. An ever-so-appropriately named vehicle, that." 

Tenzou could actually _hear_ Kakashi's grin. "Is there a point to this phone call other than to appease your sadism, Kakashi?" Tenzou fetched a protein drink from the fridge. 

"Sure," Kakashi replied easily. "Wanted to make sure the kid survived your cock's rise from the grave. I imagine it was explosive. Peel the kid off the wall, explosive."

"We're all fine. Me, Sai, and my zombie cock."

Sai looked up at Tenzou and pointedly stared at Tenzou's groin. He frowned and silently mouthed, " _Zom... bie."_

"Cool. I'm happy for you. Need anything?"

"I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Kakashi, it's what, six-thirty? Don't you have breakfast or a meeting or something?"

"Nah, I have at least two hours before Iruka wakes up for my morning beating."

Tenzou addressed the ceiling. "Maybe you should surprise him. Go strap yourself to something."

Kakashi laughed. "Is that your version of 'Go fuck yourself?'"

"Take it as you will."

"Oh I do, Asashi. I do." Kakashi hung up snickering, and Tenzou set the phone into its cradle. 

"I like him," Sai announced.

"He's an acquired taste." Tenzou walked around to get a better look at Sai's drawings. Tenzou asleep; Tenzou from below, the angle the one Sai would have had from Tenzou's lap; Tenzou in last night's clothes, looking ferociously pissed; the passkey in Tenzou's hand. "You're so talented," Tenzou murmured.

Sai sat up straighter. "I like hearing that from you."

"You're wel--"

"I woke up and you weren't here," Sai accused, scooting to the edge of the island. "I found paper in the study. I like your pens. I'm going to take a few home with me. Your showers have lots of hot water. Your sheets smell like you." Sai smiled. "I like it."

Caught somewhere between being happy that Sai had made himself so at home and being concerned over the full-on Sai invasion, Tenzou sipped his drink, processing the rapid-fire commentary. "I went for a run so I could think."

Sai's eyes narrowed, and his hand shot out to snatch a hold of Tenzou's shirt. "The way you think worries me."

"I know," Tenzou said, helplessly amused. "But I needed to--"

"Kakashi told me things."

"Oh?" Tenzou braced. "Did he, now?"

"Yes. Did you really train Neji?"

Tenzou blinked, swapping tracks to keep up with Sai. "Ah, well, I showed him some things when he came to me asking--"

"Were you his Master?" Sai interrupted, eyes huge.

Tenzou snorted, thinking of Neji's thousand-yard stare. "The only person who masters Neji is Neji, himself."

"Oh." Sai mulled that over for at least half a second. "Kakashi asked things, too."

"Dare I ask what they were?"

Sai ticked items off on his free hand. "He wanted to know if we had played, what we had done, if I actually spoke to all the people I did at the club last night, if we had a contract, yet, if we'd been sexual, if you'd told me about Jack, and if I had found something to eat for breakfast."

For a man who lived and breathed boundaries, Kakashi certainly smeared lines in the name of friendly inquiry. Tenzou reminded himself to kick Kakashi's ass the next time they went a sparring round at Gai's dojo. "Kakashi doesn't really understand privacy."

Sai chewed his lip. "Was any of that information supposed to be private?"

Tenzou wondered what it was he'd done, exactly, to merit the Universe granting him both Kakashi and Sai in the same lifetime. He cleared his throat. "You're free to talk about whatever you're comfortable saying, Sai. Although, I'd ask that you please not speak of Jack to anyone other than myself."

"Okay," Sai said softly. He tugged on Tenzou's shirt. "I want a kiss."

Tenzou stepped closer, slid a hand around the back of Sai's neck, and brought their mouths together for a simple kiss. Sai smelled and tasted like toothpaste, and Tenzou hoped Sai had used the one in the guest bathroom and not his own. 

Sai's eyes stayed closed when Tenzou pulled away. "I want more?" Sai made it a question.

"I want to talk about that, actually," Tenzou said gently. "Talk about how we proceed and discuss boundaries. I think we need--"

"Boundaries?" Sai looked stricken with panic. "Noun. Indicating border or limit. Dividing line. Do you not like kissing me? Am I doing it wrong? I can't do it better if you don't let me kiss you. I'm not kissing anyone else. I want--"

"Sai." Tenzou's warning tone worked. Sai's lips smacked shut. "I think we can keep kissing on the menu, and we can keep Scene on the table, too, but we need to talk about my limitations on sex."

Sai's dark eyes flew wide, and he planted both hands on Tenzou's shoulders. "Does this mean you're not going to try to make me learn about Scene from somewhere else, first?"

"After last night, Sai, I think it's safe to say I'm not comfortable with you learning from anyone but me." Tenzou hadn't known exactly how true that was until the instant the words were out in the open. But the weighty admission was made easier by Sai's grin and squeal of delight. 

"But!" Tenzou yelled, steadying Sai when the kid almost plummeted to the floor in his enthusiasm. "But we need to talk about--"

"I like you like this!" Sai interjected, kissing Tenzou's cheek. "I like you after a run. You should run every day. You should run again right now! You're honest. I like it. I can even put up with all the talking you have to have in order to do what I want to--"

"Not another word until I say." Tenzou put command and authority into the order, and Sai sucked a sharp breath. He tucked his feet under his ass and knelt on the counter, one knee smudging a startlingly life-like drawing of Tenzou face-fucking Sai's mouth. 

"Sai," Tenzou said, finding a fount of hidden patience unlocked by the boy's eagerness and particular brand of sweetness. "Do you care about me? Nod or shake your head to answer."

Though Tenzou knew where he was going in his line of reasoning, that question was harder to ask than Tenzou expected, but the metal bands around his heart and lungs loosened when Sai very slowly and deliberately nodded an affirmative, chin practically touching chest.

"Good," Tenzou praised, loving the way Sai's lips pursed in concentration. "I care about you, too. When we care about people, we do not want to hurt them. Correct?" Another painstaking nod. "One of the ways I protect you and show I care is sticking to the rules and guidelines we agreed upon. You were even kind enough to point out how I stuck to them last night, yes?" This nod was faster. 

Tenzou took a deep breath. "Okay, then a way you show me you care is to listen to what I am and am not comfortable doing and respect those boundaries. Just like you said last night. When I told you..." Tenzou faltered, and Sai grabbed Tenzou's hand. Sai brought it up to Sai's face and rubbed his roughened cheek against Tenzou's palm. He nodded again.

"Okay, then." Tenzou cupped Sai's chin. "Let's get something to eat, drink, and talk about how we go forward." Sai vibrated, and Tenzou chuckled. "You can speak, now, Sai."

"I want everything forward with you," Sai said on an explosive breath. "I want to try it all. Kakashi said there were checklists. You talked about those when you were still lying to yourself and thinking you weren't the one to teach me about Scene 'cause I'd be an idiot and want someone else. Can I see one? A checklist, not an idiot. I know what an idiot looks like. Can I see all of the checklists? Are there more than one? Because Kakashi seemed to think you knew more than even I thought you did, and I meant it when I said I needed extremes, though, last night was more effective than I thought, and I just called you 'Daddy' and you jerked me off, and it was amazing, but I think it could be more fun if there were rope involved? So..."

Tenzou fixed a fast breakfast, listening to Sai babble at ninety miles an hour, and he shepherded Sai into the living room, thinking it was going to be a very long but very... entertaining... conversation.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter dedicated to Chikao, who won the first game of BINGO in my most recent [Read Along Party](http://demented-dee.livejournal.com/59785.html)!
> 
> Extras, including house plans, fan art, and references, can be found on my LiveJournal, here: [Lessons in Living Main Story Entry](http://demented-dee.livejournal.com/34296.html).
> 
> Much love and zombie cocks,  
> ♥Dee

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Tenzou & Sai's Story!
> 
> 1\. Work takes place in my world, Monoshizukanohi.
> 
> 2\. I do not own the Naruto boys, but I do own the originals and the locations.
> 
> 3\. Decided to try to post this new on here, too, in addition to Y!Gallery and LJ. No harm in trying out the new home. *flexes*
> 
> 4\. This story takes place after all my others (link to the list/clubs/info on my profile for the curious), but you do not have to read those in order to understand this one, I don't think.
> 
> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy!
> 
> Much love & mysterious boys,  
> <3 Demented Dee


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